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Considering Annie Ross's justified reputation as one of the great jazz vocalists, it is disheartening to discover how few solo albums she actually released in her long career. Happily, her collaboration with fellow cool jazzmen, saxophonist Gerry Mulligan and trumpeters Chet Baker and Art Farmer alternately, is a superior session on its merits alone. As per usual with Mulligan, the accompaniment is piano-less, but Ross--who knew how to sound like a horn from her Lambert, Hendricks & Ross experience--is on firm ground here. This is not a scatting, vocalese date however. Annie sings it straight, and her versions of Leonard Bernstein's "I Feel Pretty" (from WEST SIDE STORY), "The Lady's in Love With You," and "Give Me the Simple Life" are as notable for their wry readings of the lyric as for her winning musical style.
