Real jazz singers flourish in the company of good jazz musicians, and Tina May is a real jazz singer. She can sing a straight melody, such as I’m Through with Love, and make it open like a flower. She can swing effortlessly and invent a wordless scat chorus as tricky as anything her fellow musicians can deliver. And, led by saxophonist and arranger Frank Griffiths, they are among the best you will find anywhere. There’s nothing obvious or showy about these 12 performances, but as a demonstration of sheer all-round mastery of the jazz idiom, they would be hard to beat.
