Connie Evingson - Some Cats Know (1999)

Jazz vocalist Connie Evingson is joined by a true all-star cast for Some Cats Know: Ray Brown, Al Grey, Doc Severinsen, and Jimmy Hamilton, to name a few. (Evingson's usual Minneapolis-based band is on hand as well, including Sanford Moore on piano, Terry Moore on bass, and Dave Karr on saxophone.) The song list is great, too: "I've Got the World on a String," "Yesterday/Yesterdays" (crossing Lennon-McCartney with Kern-Harbach), "All the Things You Are," "'Round Midnight," and "Anthropology." Highlights include a lickety-split Cole Porter melody of "I Love Paris" and "It's Alright with Me" punctuated by bursts of scat, sax, and percussion, and a lilting "Bluesette" with composer Toots Thielemans guesting on harmonica. --David Horiuchi