Mark Murphy - The Singing M: The Complete Decca Recordings (2020)

"Mark Murphy has to be one of the most influential if not one of the least known jazz vocalists. Just about everyone that is out there these days has been touched by the style, attitude and delivery of this guy thats been around since the 50s, and still occasionally performs. About 10 years ago, I took my then 11 year old daughter to see him perform and it hooked her onto the wonders of what a jazz singer can do.

Murphys career can be divided into 3-4 eras. This one represents his first stage, when he was a regular singer of standards. The only problem was that nothing Murphy touches stays standard. Even this songs youve known all your life are put through Murphys Waring Blender and oozed out into a completely different (and BETTER) flavor. Id LOVE to know what people with 1957-accustomed ears thought when they heard Murphy backed by Ralph Burns orchestra on these Decca sessions. Just wait until you hear him deliver a salacious Let Yourself Go and an exotically flavored Limehouse Blues. He does an agonizingly slow and deliberate take of Robbins Nest that will have you squirm while he snaps and sizzles on Pick Yourself Up and Crazy Rhythm and is delightfully as well as invitingly insouciant on Exactly Like You. Sonic ideas bounce off the walls on every song, and each delivery is fresher than anything put out by todays posers (I wont mention any names, but it rhymes with souffle)."