Julie London wasn't really a jazz singer, but she possessed a definite jazz feeling and many of her finest albums (such as Julie Is Her Name and Julie...At Home) feature small-group jazz backings. About the Blues was aimed at the 1950s pop market, but it may just be her best orchestral session. Since downbeat torch songs were London's specialty, the album features an excellent selection of nocturnal but classy blues songs that play to her subtle strengths instead of against them. Likewise, Russ Garcia's clever arrangements bleed jazz touches and short solos over the solitary strings and big-band charts. Like June Christy, London usually included a couple of new songs in with a selection of standards, and her husband, Bobby Troup, wrote two excellent numbers for the album. One of them, the emotionally devastating Meaning of the Blues, is the album's highlight, and was turned into a jazz standard after Miles Davis recorded it the same year for Miles Ahead.
Tracklist
- Basin Street Blues
- I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues
- A Nightingale Can Sing the Blues
- Get Set for the Blues
- Invitation to the Blues
- Bye Bye Blues
- Baby, Baby, All the Time
- Shadow Woman
- Meaning of the Blues
- About the Blues
- Sunday Blues
- The Blues Is All I Ever Had
- Blues in the Night
- Bouquet of Blues
- Meaning of the Blues
- Dark