How to better a record like Revolver? Sign off another by the name of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. For many, this is truly the greatest pop and rock music of all time, if not one of the most significant works of art in popular culture from the second half of the twentieth century... After discovering the endless possibilities offered to them in the recording studio, John, Paul, George and Ringo continue their crazy musical experiments. More than ever considered as the ‘fifth Beatle’, producer George Martin runs out a magic carpet of discoveries that would go on to influence the future of pop. When this eighth studio album is released in June 1967, the era is one that has embraced the all-out psychedelic, and this concept album is a true hallucinatory trip (not only for Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds). Like the patchwork of his mythical pocket, Sergeant Pepper's journeys through pure pop, manly rock'n'roll, totally trippy sequences (to near worldly scales), retro songs of nursery rhymes, animal noises and even classical music! On the composition side, the duo of Lennon/McCartney is at the top of its game, delivering new songs that are still influential today. © MZ/Qobuz, Translation/BM

It was do or die for Toto on the group's fourth album, and they rose to the challenge. Largely dispensing with the anonymous studio rock that had characterized their first three releases, the band worked harder on its melodies, made sure its simple lyrics treated romantic subjects, augmented Bobby Kimball's vocals by having other group members sing, brought in ringers like Timothy B. Schmit, and slowed down the tempo to what came to be known as "power ballad" pace. Most of all, they wrote some hit songs: "Rosanna," the old story of a lovelorn lyric matched to a bouncy beat, was the gold, Top Ten comeback single accompanying the album release; "Make Believe" made the Top 30; and then, surprisingly, "Africa" hit number one ten months after the album's release. The members of Toto may have more relatives who are NARAS voters than any other group, but that still doesn't explain the sweep they achieved at the Grammys, winning six, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year (for "Rosanna"). Predictably, rock critics howled, but the Grammys helped set up the fourth single, "I Won't Hold You Back," another soft rock smash and Top Ten hit. As a result, Toto IV was both the group's comeback and its peak; it remains a definitive album of slick L.A. pop for the early '80s and Toto's best and most consistent record. Having made it, the members happily went back to sessions, where they helped write and record Michael Jackson's Thriller.© William Ruhlmann /TiVo

As on their 2006 covers album Yeah!, British hard rock giants Def Leppard make a surprisingly enjoyable meal out of what is usually a predictable exercise. Drastic Symphonies is not an album of new material, nor even entirely new recordings. A collaboration with London's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, it's a symphonic reimagining of 16 career-spanning songs, including well-known hits and a smattering of deep cuts. Blending their original multi-track recordings with new overdubs to fit the theme, Drastic Symphonies is a pastiche of new and old ideas that, more often than not, reflects the sturdy pop construction on which their career was built. There was always a bit of romantic grandeur to Def Leppard's strain of lush glam metal, especially on early classics like "Too Late for Love" and "Bringin' On the Heartbreak," both of which get full orchestral treatment here. Joe Elliott, still in fine voice, can often be heard singing new leads atop the giant stacks of Mutt Lange-produced harmonies that became their '80s hallmark. Some songs are significantly altered, with only the occasional guitar solo poking out, while others sound very close to their original mixes, albeit with a bit of melodic sweetening from one of the world's great orchestras. The dense and swirling "Paper Sun," from 1999's Euphoria, is a highlight, punching up Def Leppard's original into something more thrilling and cinematic, and their 1987 smash "Animal" is practically built for the kind of pomp it receives here. Of course, any project like this is a mixed bag, and ironically, their biggest hit is Drastic Symphonies' biggest misfire. Naturally, they had to include "Pour Some Sugar on Me," but its stripped-down romantic duet arrangement falls flat without its glammy fizz. Overall, though, the band comes off much better than expected.© Timothy Monger /TiVo

A half-century into their career, synth-pop provocateurs Ron and Russell Mael—now 77 and 74 years old—are as funny, arch and deservingly influential as they've always been. "The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte," the title track of their twenty-fifth album is lush and robust; as Cate Blanchett, who stars in the accompanying video, has said: "You know, 'the girl is crying in her latte'—it's so deep and shallow, simultaneously." "Is it due to the rain/ Or is she in some pain ... The girl is crying in her latte, yeah," Russell sings. "Now she's leaving the place/ Someone's taking her place/ Orders, then takes a seat/ Looks like it's a repeat ... So many people are crying in their latte." And that's the sort of complementary push-pull the brothers have always trafficked in: highbrow-lowbrow, humorous-sad, pop-niche. They're also genius observers of the world and fantastic imagineers of some world that maybe excited decades ago (or maybe just in their heads). "It's Sunny Today" catalogs all the things you could do on a gorgeous day—to the tune of Christmastime luxury-car commercial strings. Gleeful in the way of  "I Predict" off 1982's Angst in my Pants, "Nothing Is As Good As They Say It Is" applies New Wave pop to the narrative of an already world-weary newborn ready to return to the womb ("Were I born in the south of France/ I would feel less resistant to/ Somewhere that just deserves adieu," go the lyrics, like the caption to a New Yorker cartoon). Set to percolating synth, "Veronica Lake"—the latest in a long line of Sparks' cinematic references—is a garishly funny tale of women on WWII assembly lines whose Hollywood dreams get in the way of Rosie the Riveter reality: "And they all want to be Veronica Lake/ But that peek-a-boo hair, it's a big mistake/ As the foreman has to yell, 'put on the brake'/ Yet another girl caught/ Veronica Lake." "Not That Well-Defined" swirls with the rich darkness of balalaika, "We Go Dancing" is manic ballet theater, and "Take Me for a Ride" is Hitchcockian unhinged. Chanty "The Mona Lisa's Packing, Leaving Late Tonight" churns and sways as if on the high seas. And "When You Leave" is deliciously, wormishly defiant. "They'll be breaking out the good music when you leave/ The Stylistics ... the Delfonics ... There'll be red wine on all the carpets when you leave ... They can't wait," Russell sings, before adopting a lighter voice in response:  "I'm going to stay/ Just to annoy them." It all ends with the troubadour surprise of "It Doesn't Have to Be That Way" and melodramatic "Gee, That Was Fun"—mashing up "My Way" and "Bohemian Rhapsody"-style pomp for what could be read as a grateful career retrospective. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

One of her most pop-oriented albums, but also one of her best and most consistent. Most of the songs feature dramatic, swinging large-band orchestration, with the accent on the brass and strings. Simone didn't write any of the material, turning to popular European songsmiths Charles Aznavour, Jacques Brel, and Anthony Newley, as well as her husband, Andy Stroud, and her guitarist, Rudy Stevenson, for bluesier fare. There are really fine tunes and interpretations, on which Simone gives an edge to the potentially fey pop songs, taking a sudden (but not uncharacteristic) break for a straight jazz instrumental with "Blues on Purpose." The title track, a jazzy string ballad version of the Screamin' Jay Hawkins classic, gave the Beatles the inspiration for the phrasing on the bridge of "Michelle."© Richie Unterberger /TiVo

Drop everything: it's here! For once, a reissue-plus-rarities set that's worth all the time you have. Revolver, the Beatles' seventh studio album originally issued on August 5,1966, is widely celebrated as the greatest single album of the rock era. It brought psychedelic invention paired with impeccable melodies to the entire world. That first, wildly inventive release remains beyond stunning, and this is not meant to supplant it in any way. The expanded reissue of Revolver shows us the most successful band in the world at the top of their powers, in love with possibility (each song is a different template for sonic possibilities, from blue-eyed soul to avant-garde pop to beautiful melancholic dream music), and still absolutely in love with being a band. The unabashed, youthful enthusiasm for using the studio as an instrument, which would be their path forward as they no longer toured after the release of Revolver, is on special display in all of the outtakes.You likely know the original inside and out, so be prepared. The new mixes by Giles Martin and Sam Okell are truly high fidelity. As you might have read, Martin (son to George) and Okell employ a "de-mixing" technology recently developed by Emile de la Rey and others for the Peter Jackson Get Back documentary project. New details emerge, and the voice separation is spectacular. We're not saying that it's like you are hearing it for the first time, but you will discern new elements in a way that enhances and never detracts. This is so difficult to not only accomplish, but to do well. We've all fallen for reissues that don't live up to the hype. Some grand sonic experiments with reissuing can take years to realize. Perhaps they didn't need to lop off half of the sonic information on the 1990s era Robert Johnson reissues in order to present the music without the crackles and pops of the original 78s. This new de-mix (get it?) is surely a new standard. Hundreds of hours of expert care went into this release. If you haven't listened in a while, the same questions remain, such as why begin their biggest leap forward with a song as lurching and "meh" as "Taxman?" Aside from that song being merely good and not mind-blowing, the only quibble is that the release's track listing presents different outtakes and demos of the same track end to end. One does see them flower and fracture by doing this, but after the first listens, it might be repetitive. This ahead-of-its-time full-length is so close to perfect.Beatlemaniacs and newborn fans alike must consider this the new reference, the new source. As the band infamously sing on "Tomorrow Never Knows" (which has the most revelatory demos of all on this set), invoking both Eastern thought and contemporary enthusiasts of the psychedelic revolution, "Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void; it is shining, it is shining." © Mike McGonigal/Qobuz

Olivia Rodrigo became the brightest new pop star of 2021 with "Driver's License," the single that broke streaming records and kicked off a string of number one hits. It's easy to hear why the song was so popular: As she sang about the plans that fall apart in the wake of a breakup and the sheer magnitude of her very first heartbreak, the rawness in Rodrigo's voice and lyrics spoke to those her own age and provided some potent flashbacks for those a little -- or a lot -- older than her. On the rest of her debut album Sour, she delivers on the potential of that blockbuster single and then some. Rodrigo nails what it's like to be 17, heartbroken, and frustrated, and updates the traditions of the sharp-eyed and sharp-tongued songwriters before her for Generation Z. Like her hero Taylor Swift, she's got a flair for details and a willingness to share every aspect of her heartache, even (or especially) the bitter side of it; on "Happier," she sings to her ex, "I hope you're happy/But don't be happier." Her ability to pair a sizeable amount of disdain with equally big hooks recalls Lorde on the slinky self-loathing of "Jealousy, Jealousy," and there are even shades of Alanis Morissette's jagged, jilted younger woman in "Deja Vu"'s hyper-literate litany of tarnished memories. Rodrigo expands on "Driver's License" with similarly barbed and self-aware power ballads like "Traitor," which captures the pain when an ex rebounds more quickly than expected, and with the folky introspection of "Favorite Crime," where she reflects on how her desperation to hang onto a relationship made her culpable in her own pain. However, Sour might be even more vital when Rodrigo lashes out on the album's rock-tinged songs. She revels in her anger on "Good 4 U"'s sneering verses and pogo-ing choruses, letting the drum rolls build up a head of steam that the riffs unleash, and begins the album with a surprisingly punky blast of angst on "Brutal," where she tears down the idealization of teenage years ("I'm so sick of seventeen/Where's my fuckin' teenage dream?") over guitars that are the musical equivalent of an eyeroll. Moments like these lend another exciting dimension to her music, even if she takes a few steps beyond the rest of the album's fury on the tender closing track "Hope Ur OK." Rodrigo wants to be taken seriously as a songwriter, and she should be -- her combination of sweet melodies and bitter moods, her conversational flow, and her self-awareness are all skills many songwriters twice her age would love to call their own, and they make Sour a well-rounded emotional journey and strong debut album.© Heather Phares /TiVo

Lake Geneva is not Lake Pontchartrain, and Montreux is certainly not New Orleans. But regularly, during the famous Montreux jazz festival, the two cities fall into step in a swaying dance. Especially when Dr. John is on stage, who has made it up there at least seven times, in 1986, 1993, 1995, 2004, 2007, 2011 and 2012. Why has Dr. John played so many times in Montreux? In part because he was a huge figure with constant high quality performances, as good in his last decade (he died in 2019) as in his previous ones. But also because the public never tired of him. Dr. John always emanated good vibes, with music like a course of vitamin therapy.This compilation of his Montreux concerts begins with four tracks recorded in 1986. Dr. John is alone at the piano, and in great shape. Caribbean-style boogie-woogie escapes from under his nimble wanders, cool and elegant, typical of New Orleans (and partly invented by Professor Longhair, to whom Dr. John pays tribute). On the other pieces played in the group, which includes a brass and rhythm section, he showcases radiant funk and indulgent jazz, the secrets to which he has always held close to his chest. All of Dr. John’s and New Orleans classics are there, from Let the Good Times Roll, Big Chief and Right Place, Wrong Time. Everyone who has seen Dr. John on stage, in Montreux or elsewhere, will find that this compilation offers the same energy of his concerts. What’s more, it won’t fail to bring a smile to your face. © Stéphane Deschamps/Qobuz

With Dan Auerbach now a studio owner and label chief, it's natural to wonder how he is finding the time to write quality songs and record with his original band. Or focus enough to make another masterpiece like 2004's Rubber Factory or 2011's El Camino. That situation may have influenced the title of this collection, but any fears about consistency or the way forward are dispelled by the opening riff rocker, "Wild Child." The vintage Black Keys three chord tromper "Your Team is Looking Good" also rocks convincingly, and they get back to one of their core strengths—Mississippi hill country blues stomp, which they celebrated on their last album, Delta Kream—in "For the Love of Money." In a strange turn, the biggest guest here, ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons isn't asked to do much in the mid-tempo "Good Love," which he co-wrote.  Recorded at Auerbach's Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville over a five-month period in summer and fall of 2021, Dropout Boogie was engineered by M. Allen Parker and Caleb VanBuskirk and mixed by the A-list talents of Tchad Blake and Tom Elmhirst. Percussionist Sam Bacco adds variety to Patrick Carney's drumming. A deceptively capable vocalist, Auerbach takes a very credible stab at writing and singing a ballad in "How Long" which is fleshed out by a harpsichord and backup vocals by Cincinnati's Andy Gabbard (Thee Shams, Buffalo Killers) who also tours as The Black Keys' second guitarist. Auerbach sings incendiary lyrics, "If we make it to your town/ We're gonna burn the damn thing down" in odd, leisurely fashion in the decidedly non-menacing, "Burn the Damn Thing Down." And near its end, "Baby I'm Coming Home" breaks into the signature riff from the Allman Brothers, "Midnight Rider."  As the album's second half winds down, so does the strength of the tunes, but you'll still find the same fuzzy guitars, big beats and layered vocals that have made their sound special.  If not essential Black Keys, the lower key Dropout Boogie is at least more of what's made them one of the last major rock bands left alive.  © Robert Baird/Qobuz

Taj Mahal has released many kinds of albums in a six-decade career: folk, jump, country, blues of all stripes, sounds from Africa, the Caribbean, R&B, soul, collaborations with musicians from across the globe, and even children's records. Savoy moves in another direction still. Recorded in collaboration with producer, pianist, and longtime friend John Simon, this set offers blues-kissed reads of 14 tunes from the Great American Songbook. The album is titled as an homage to the iconic Harlem ballroom at 596 Lenox Ave. Mahal's parents met there in 1938 seeing Ella Fitzgerald front the Chick Webb Orchestra. Simon and Mahal discussed the project for decades, but August 2022 was when the planets aligned. They cut the set live with a core band and guests. Mahal's band includes guitarist Danny Caron, bassist Ruth Davies, Simon on piano, drummer Leon Joyce, Jr., and a vocal chorus with Carla Holbrook, Leesa Humphrey, and Charlotte McKinnon. Interestingly, Caron and Davies served in Charles Brown's band, and Joyce drummed with Ramsey Lewis for many years. "Stompin' at the Savoy" starts with spoken word; Mahal delivers a reenactment of his parents' meeting. As he commences singing and scatting the lyrics, backing singers underscore with oohs, aahs, and call-and-response. "I'm Just a Lucky So-and-So" is one of three Duke Ellington numbers here. The languid horn section plays a blues progression with added warmth and grace from Kristen Strom's swinging flute. The arrangement of George Gershwin's "Summertime" is delivered allegretto, with blue, finger-popping swing from lush horns. "Mood Indigo" benefits from co-producer Manny Moreira's accumulated years of big band and Broadway experience. His layered brass colorations add dimension. "Do Nothin' Till You Hear from Me" offers languid, late-night horns (except in the bridge when they deliberately evoke gospel), and Simon's tasteful comping adds drama. The fluid blues guitar break from Caron benefits with elegance and bite. "Sweet Georgia Brown" is meaty and sprightly as Mahal's grainy singing and scatting contrasts beautifully with Evan Price's "Parisian hot jazz" violin. Maria Muldaur -- one of the great interpreters of vintage blues, jazz, R&B, and country -- joins Mahal on the fun, sultry "Baby It's Cold Outside," with excellent violin, trombone, and piano solos. "Caldonia," Louis Jordan's striding jump boogie, offers pumping piano, swinging guitar, and smoking sax and trombone solos behind Mahal's good-time vocal. His harmonica joins Strom's tenor sax to elevate in Benny Golson's dynamic "Killer Joe," before "One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)" closes the set. Mahal references several classic versions and arrangements in shifting tempos, but he ultimately only sounds like himself. Savoy embodies the abundant joy of its predecessor, Get On Board: The Songs of Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, but the album offers added nuance, color, dynamics, and musical sophistication. It seemingly accomplishes the impossible by taking these (overly) familiar standards and breathing new life into them while simultaneously honoring their legacies as well as that of the historic Harlem ballroom. © Thom Jurek /TiVo

To the thousands of questions raised about themselves, the Arctic Monkeys answer Whatever People Say I Am, I Am Not. Their success story, born in bars and on the Internet, is as huge as it is dazzling. Smashing the British sales record – over 360,000 albums sold in a week −, they receive this memorable accolade from the Times: Bigger than the Beatles! In Great Britain, ever since the Libertines have burnt out, the horizon had turned dull grey. All until this fluorescent-adolescent quartet from Sheffield. Led by the timid Alex Turner, the Monkeys concocted for this perfect first album thirteen frantic tracks bordering on genius, that the NME ranked 19th in its 500 Greatest albums of all time list. It featured everything that had been missing from the rock landscape. Incisive guitar riffs for Turner’s scruffy compositions (The View From The Afternoon, I Bet You Look Better On The Dancefloor, Dancing Shoes) and Matt Helders’ cheeky drums. Andy Nicholson on the bass for the last time. They play, hard and fast. The whole thing is overflowing with extensive lyrics about the daily life of the English working class. Shiny but not polished, youthful but well formed. Recorded in the country side, in the Chapel Studios in Lincolnshire, this opus draws from the Strokes’ nonchalance (Riot Van), Franz Ferdinand’s dancing energy (Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secured) and the Libertines’ phlegm (Mardy Bum), while also drawing inspiration from their idols, the Jam, the Smiths, and Oasis, already putting down their very own trademarks for years to come. © Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz

How to better a record like Revolver? Sign off another by the name of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. For many, this is truly the greatest pop and rock music of all time, if not one of the most significant works of art in popular culture from the second half of the twentieth century... After discovering the endless possibilities offered to them in the recording studio, John, Paul, George and Ringo continue their crazy musical experiments. More than ever considered as the ‘fifth Beatle’, producer George Martin runs out a magic carpet of discoveries that would go on to influence the future of pop. When this eighth studio album is released in June 1967, the era is one that has embraced the all-out psychedelic, and this concept album is a true hallucinatory trip (not only for Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds). Like the patchwork of his mythical pocket, Sergeant Pepper's journeys through pure pop, manly rock'n'roll, totally trippy sequences (to near worldly scales), retro songs of nursery rhymes, animal noises and even classical music! On the composition side, the duo of Lennon/McCartney is at the top of its game, delivering new songs that are still influential today. © MZ/Qobuz, Translation/BM

As big a hit as it was -- and it was a multi-platinum blockbuster, spinning off several chart-toppers -- it’s not easy to think of Whitney Houston’s 1985 debut as the dawning of a new era, but it was. Arriving in the thick of MTV, when the slick sounds of yacht-soul were fading, Whitney Houston is the foundation of diva-pop, straddling clean, cheery R&B and big ballads designed with the adult contemporary audience in mind. Houston’s background lay in the former -- actually, it was even riskier, encompassing a stint with the experimental Bill Laswell outfit Material -- and her benefactor Clive Davis knew all about selling records to the masses. Appealing as this album is, Davis may never have imagined how Whitney Houston would shift tastes, pushing toward skyscraping ballads where the singer’s affectations, not the songs, were paramount -- a move that later led to hollow records, but on Whitney Houston the songs were as important as the immaculate productions. Certainly, the showstopping “Greatest Love of All” provided the blueprint for decades of divas, but it’s the only overblown moment here, with the rest of the ballads -- notably “Saving All My Love for You” and “You Give Good Love” -- burning slowly and seductively, but what really impresses some 20-plus years on are the lighter tracks, particularly the breakthrough single “How Will I Know” and the unheralded “Thinking About You,” a dance/R&B hit co-written by Kashif that remains one of Whitney’s purest pop pleasures. These joyful, rhythmic moments faded away from Houston’s later work -- and also rarely surfaced on the records of those who followed her -- but their presence on this debut turns this into a fully rounded record, the rare debut that manages to telegraph every aspect of an artist's career in a mere ten songs. [The 2010 25th anniversary edition of Whitney Houston is expanded with five bonus tracks -- remixes of “Thinking About You,” “Someone for Me,” “How Will I Know,” a live version of “Greatest Love of All” from 1990, and a superfluous a cappella mix of “How Will I Know” -- and a bonus DVD containing music videos from the album, new interviews, and -- best of all -- Whitney’s star-making 1983 performance on The Merv Griffin Show.]© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

In addition to being bandmates within Miles Davis' mid-'50s quintet, John Coltrane (tenor sax) and Red Garland (piano) head up a session featuring members from a concurrent version of the Red Garland Trio: Paul Chambers (bass) and Art Taylor (drums). This was the second date to feature the core of this band. A month earlier, several sides were cut that would end up on Coltrane's Lush Life album. Soultrane offers a sampling of performance styles and settings from Coltrane and crew. As with a majority of his Prestige sessions, there is a breakneck-tempo bop cover (in this case an absolute reworking of Irving Berlin's "Russian Lullaby"), a few smoldering ballads (such as "I Want to Talk About You" and "Theme for Ernie"), as well as a mid-tempo romp ("Good Bait"). Each of these sonic textures displays a different facet of not only the musical kinship between Coltrane and Garland but in the relationship that Coltrane has with the music. The bop-heavy solos that inform "Good Bait," as well as the "sheets of sound" technique that was named for the fury in Coltrane's solos on the rendition of "Russian Lullaby" found here, contain the same intensity as the more languid and considerate phrasings displayed particularly well on "I Want to Talk About You." As time will reveal, this sort of manic contrast would become a significant attribute of Coltrane's unpredictable performance style. Not indicative of the quality of this set is the observation that, because of the astounding Coltrane solo works that both precede and follow Soultrane -- most notably Lush Life and Blue Train -- the album has perhaps not been given the exclusive attention it so deserves.© Lindsay Planer /TiVo

How to better a record like Revolver? Sign off another by the name of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. For many, this is truly the greatest pop and rock music of all time, if not one of the most significant works of art in popular culture from the second half of the twentieth century... After discovering the endless possibilities offered to them in the recording studio, John, Paul, George and Ringo continue their crazy musical experiments. More than ever considered as the ‘fifth Beatle’, producer George Martin runs out a magic carpet of discoveries that would go on to influence the future of pop. When this eighth studio album is released in June 1967, the era is one that has embraced the all-out psychedelic, and this concept album is a true hallucinatory trip (not only for Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds). Like the patchwork of his mythical pocket, Sergeant Pepper's journeys through pure pop, manly rock'n'roll, totally trippy sequences (to near worldly scales), retro songs of nursery rhymes, animal noises and even classical music! On the composition side, the duo of Lennon/McCartney is at the top of its game, delivering new songs that are still influential today. ©MZ/Qobuz, Translation/BM

Little Girl Blue, released in 1957, was Nina Simone's first recording, originally issued on the Bethlehem label. Backed by bassist Jimmy Bond and Albert "Tootie" Heath, it showcases her ballad voice as one of mystery and sensuality and showcases her uptempo jazz style with authority and an enigmatic down-home feel that is nonetheless elegant. The album also introduced a fine jazz pianist. Simone was a solid improviser who never strayed far from the blues. Check the opener, her reading of Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo," which finger-pops and swings while keeping the phrasing deep-blue. It is contrasted immediately with one of the -- if not the -- definitive reads of Willard Robison's steamy leave-your-lover ballad "Don't Smoke in Bed." The title track, written by Rodgers & Hart, features "Good King Wenceslas" as a classical prelude to one of the most beautiful pop ballads ever written. It is followed immediately by the funky swing in "Love Me or Leave Me" with a smoking little piano solo in the bridge where Bach meets Horace Silver and Bobby Timmons. It's also interesting to note that while this was her first recording, the record's grooves evidence an artist who arrives fully formed; many of the traits Simone displayed throughout her career as not only a vocalist and pianist but as an arranger are put on first notice here. "My Baby Just Cares for Me" has a stride shuffle that is extrapolated on in the piano break. Her instrumental and improvising skills are put to good use on Tadd Dameron's "Good Bait," which is transformed into something classical from its original bebop intent. "You'll Never Walk Alone" feels more like some regal gospel song than the Rodgers & Hammerstein show tune it was. Of course, one of Simone's signature tunes was her version of "I Loves You, Porgy," which appears here for the first time and was released as a single. Her own "Central Park Blues" is one of the finest jazz tunes here, and it is followed with yet another side of Simone's diversity in her beautiful take on the folk-gospel tune "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands," with quiet and determined dignity and drama. Another of her instrumentals compositions, "African Mailman," struts proud with deep Afro-Caribbean roots and rhythms.© Thom Jurek /TiVo