Maxine Sullivan - Maxine Sullivan with The Ike Isaacs Quartet (2019)

The lady with “A voice as soothing as a gust of wind on a balmy summer day”, Maxine Sullivan is one of the most talented and influential singers of Jazz and Popular music in the 20th century. She originated an innovative effortless graceful soft swing style with precise diction and timing that influenced generations of female Jazz singers including Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee.

Los Angeles Times music reviewer Gilbert Feather wrote: “The Sullivan sound remains one of those immutable wonders in which simplicity, understatement and a lightweight sound that matches her dimensions have always been the benchmarks.”

Some 40 years after those halcyon days, at the time of this Grammy nominated recording in 1978 she was still a jazz superstar, equally at home performing with traditional jazz players like Art Hodes or the World’s Greatest Jazz Band or, as in this album, singing with a Jazz Quartet led by bassist Ike Isaacs.

At the time of this session in February 1978, Ike Isaacs, Dan Wall, and Steve Ellington were the house trio at Atlanta’s thriving Jazz Club “EJ’s” and worked with many Jazz Stars including Zoot Sims, Buddy DeFranco, Urbie Green and Clark Terry. Isaacs, of course, will be remembered for those famous Columbia sides with Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross.

Here his talented group blooms behind Maxine’s wistful Everything Happens To Me. Herman Foretich’s Shaw-like clarinet romps wildly through By Myself, wailing on My Very Good Friend The Milkman and singing softly on You Go To My Head. Also, it’s obvious that Dan Wall is a young man we should be hearing more from, if we are lucky.

Maxine Sullivan – Vocals
Ike Isaacs – String Bass & Leader of Ike Isaacs Quartet
Herman Foretich – Reeds
Dan Wall – Piano
Steve Ellington – Drums