Susan Hinkson: Just in Time

In 2025, radio programmers are apt to carp about singers who continue to cover the Great American Songbook. There are new songs and songwriters to explore, they say, and it is true. But for lovers of mainstream jazz, the mellow sound of a sensitive balladeer like Susan Hinkson singing a gem like Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer's "One for My Baby" still satisfies.

On a late and rainy Saturday night, many a jazz fan would be delighted to stumble into a club where Hinkson and her swinging band of soulful jazz masters were holding forth. Bruce Barth leads the ensemble, with Steve Wilson on alto saxophone, bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Adam Cruz. Everyone plays beautifully on the date.

While Just in Time is Hinkson's debut release, music is not her first career. She trained in architecture and law and worked for years in New York City government, on land use policy and regulation. The notes tell us that this is "an album that speaks of the delights and disappointments of lifelong experience." On "One for My Baby," the vibe is, as the lyric says, "easy and sad." And who—in 2025 as before—has not wished to toast to the end of some "brief episode?"