This cd is worth getting just for track 1. 'Pure Imagination'. If the title sounds familiar, think Willie Wonka. It's the big song from that film. I've never heard it covered before, and Claudia makes it a separate and distinct jazz song now, making it all her own, almost seeming to put it outside, where the water falls and the birds sing (you can hear them!). She's sure got a better voice than Gene Wilder! It's smooth, a few miles sexy, and jazzzzz!
The program: 12 standards with your standard jazz orchestration: vocal, piano, bass, drums, with the occasional trombone, sax, trumpet. One of the best in typical fast jazz fashion is Ellington's 'Prelude to a Kiss', sure to please the old-style folks on your list. But Claudia also crosses over into Spanish territory with a few favorites like 'Gracias A La Vida (Thanks For Life)'. It heats up the Latin jazz side of things, with all those horns. And to prove she doesn't need all that musical make-up, she strips herself clean for the next 'What'll I Do', just piano and her soft voice enveloped in the Irving Berlin.
'Bewitched' is a song that's on too many albums, but I'm glad it shows up here. There is a thriving, thrashing energy among the piano and drums, as Claudia holds her notes and makes up some extras in true jazz fashion! that don't appear in the original sheet music. It's a wild storm pleasure to see this tornado turn for 6 minutes.
And one of the most interesting has to be 'Alfonsina Y El Mar (Alfonsina and the Sea)', just a Spanish voice and bass. That's it. And that's all you need, baby. A calm, rippling sea, a voice on the raft as if glad to be alone, watching the sunset tan itself by the coming moon.