This album features selections from five classic Webster releases: BEN WEBSTER AND ASSOCIATES, MUSIC FOR LOVING, KING OF THE TENORS, SOULVILLE, and COLEMAN HAWKINS ENCOUNTERS BEN WEBSTER. This music is part of Verve's "Quiet Now" series, which not surprisingly, highlights ballads and light swing. A romantic, even sultry compilation, UNTIL TONIGHT is the perfect jazz mood music for any occasion. However, these tunes need not be relegated to the background.
Webster's sensitive and deeply emotional approach to the ballad is elegant beyond compare. UNTIL TONIGHT features such standard love songs as, "Tenderly," "Time After Time" and "It Never Entered My Mind." Selections from MUSIC FOR LOVING are replete with a string orchestra, and other tunes showcase pianists Oscar Peterson, Hank Jones, or Billy Strayhorn (all legends in their own right). Finally, Webster's idol, Coleman Hawkins sits in on the Latin-inflected "La Rosita."