Born to Be Blue captures
Beverly Kenney at her most intimate and compelling. Created in collaboration with arrangers
Hal Mooney and
Charles Albertine, the music channels the emotional depth of the blues with startling clarity, employing
Kenney's deep, commanding vocals to vividly poignant effect.
Mooney and
Albertine forgo excess and sentimentality in favor of stark simplicity, architecting taut modern jazz contexts that shift the spotlight squarely on
Kenney's vocals. Her readings of familiar songs like "For All We Know" are forged from both resiliency and vulnerability, articulating an emotional depth matched by few singers of her era. [This is the 2007 Universal reissued of the LP; an import-only Japanese CD was released in 1999.] Jason Ankeny