Ray Brown Trio, Monty Alexander, Jeff Hamilton, Ernestine Anderson - Live At The Concord Jazz Festival 1979 (1990)

This might be one of the five best live performances ever recorded. It has everything going for it - lots of audience participation, a great trio of jazz players (headed up by one of the greatest bassists of all time), and near state-of-the-art sound quality. Did I mention that every song on the CD gives you a taste of the artists' versatility?
But the best is yet to come. The session starts out with three great renditions of some bossa nova standards - Blue Bossa, Bossa Nova Do Marilla and Manhã De Carnaval (from Black Orpheus) - and a really nice St. Louis Blues. Then things really start swinging when Carl Jefferson (the record label's founder) introduces the MAIN ATTRACTION of this set: the incomparably magnificent Miss Ernestine Anderson. She starts cooking with an up-tempo Fly Me To The Moon that evokes a flurry of cheers and whistles from the crowd, followed by the real jaw-dropper on the album, the most soulful Georgia On My Mind you're likely to hear... ever!
No doubt about it, this is one of the greatest recordings that Concord Jazz ever produced. It makes me one happy fella every time I hear it. Buy it and let Ernestine convince you too that she is one of the few of the greatest jazz vocalists to appear since Ella, Billie or Sarah. I promise you, she is THAT good!
S. Baird