Rebecca Parris: You Don't Know Me

It's about time somebody said it—Rebecca Parris is the real thing. Her voice speaks of years of experience but her melodic and harmonic inventiveness, rhythmic playfulness and different way with a lyric are all eternally young and new.

You Don't Know Me, on a new label, is a rich and full program of tunes from our American Songbook—with a Brazilian evergreen thrown in for good, very good, measure. The voice is perhaps darker than it has been in the past but it's a darkness that speaks of the wisdom that comes with not just age but also with the diligence of learning to love and overcome fears. Her trio—Brad Hatfield on keyboards, Peter Kontrimas on bass and Matt Gordy on drums (on the title track, Jim Lattini replaces Gordy)—find the grooves to sing with Parris and take the same joy in invention and exploration. And the singer calls in some other grand old friends—Gary Burton, with whom she made one of her earliest recordings, and saxophonists Jerry Bergonzi and Houston Person.

One of the recording's many high points is on the "Yesterdays/We'll Be Together Again medley. Bergonzi floats over a gently Brazilian groove inviting Parris to dig, but not get hooked, into the bittersweet lyrics. And then she does a funny thing—in the middle of the bridge she finds the beginning of "Together and with the same groove lets us know that she's found hope. It's a beautiful, natural transition.

A word about scat singing: I admit to a fondness for its absence, generally, but Parris uses it to tell stories and as just one in a veritable treasure-trove of techniques. As the title implies, this is an album about knowledge—the singer's assured knowledge of songs and singing and also a way for us to get to know the joys of true improvisation.