Karrin Allyson - In Blue (2002)

There's nothing like the sound of a singer coming into her own. Following up her first-rate, song-by-song traversal of John Coltrane's Ballads, on which she closely followed the original arrangements, Karrin Allyson here cuts consistently fresh paths through a choice set of blues and blues-inspired tunes. There is never a moment when she takes a tune for granted--or allows us to. Breathing a sultry intimacy into Bobby Timmons' jazz classic, "Moanin,'" she maximizes Jon Hendricks's lyrics with her rolling-and-tumbling phrasing. Toughening her voice, she could almost be mistaken for Bonnie Raitt on "Love Me Like a Man," one of the blues-rock queen's signature songs. Backed by her fine regular guitarist Danny Embrey and the superb rhythm section of Mulgrew Miller, Peter Washington, and Lewis Nash, she also brings distinction to offbeat selections such as Oscar Brown Jr.'s "Hum Drum Blues," Blossom Dearie's "Bye Bye Country Boy," and Joni Mitchell's "Blue Motel Room." That she knows "The Meaning of the Blues" (she covers that Bobby Troup standard, too) is no surprise. She is, after all, from Kansas City. But the variety of shades she exposes here is worth shouting about. --Lloyd Sachs