Consumer Guide Album

Esther Phillips: Jazz Moods/Hot [Epic/Legacy, 2005]
Niggles about great singers who trend-hop are often swallowed up by their voices as history passes. A sardonic acolyte of jazz-r&b hitmaker Dinah Washington, Esther Phillips is respected for her r&b output, especially with the Atlantic Records posse. But her commercial peak, a decade later, was her dance records with Creed Taylor and various jazz fusioneers, and this ill-packaged cheapo, her only extant U.S. compilation in the style, proves disco was good for her. Sure the Grammy-nominated Washington cover "What a Difference a Day Makes" is taken too fast. But her astringent, vibrato-laden soprano is never derailed. And it owns the socially conscious Gil Scott-Heron and Joe Cocker songs, the Duke Ellington classic, and--remarkably--Bill Withers's "Use Me." [Blender: 4]