Irene Reid: Thanks to You

Ella’s gone. Sarah’s gone. So, too, Dinah, Carmen, Dakota. Lena’s long since retired and Nancy’s planning soon to hang it up. But Irene Reid, the indefatigable Energizer Bunny of female jazz stylists, just keeps going and going and going. Reid’s latest, Thanks to You (Savant), finds her again in fine, robust form, sounding as terrific as ever on a spectrum of Tin Pan Alley standards and R&B classics, ranging from the precocious “Be a Sweet Pumpkin” and sunny “Our Day Will Come” to the cozy satisfaction of Rodgers & Hart’s “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was” and the bracing disconsolation of “This Bitter Earth.”

Originally Published October 1, 2004