The Gershwins' wonderful "They Can't Take That Away From Me," originally recorded by Fred Astaire, is often a plaintive lament, but Jones belts it as a defiant album--nobody better try and take it away from me. This one is mostly Jones, but Winchester has an arresting, rhythmically interesting solo.
"That's All There Is to That" had been a recent hit for Nat "King" Cole, who had recorded a song called "That's All" several years earlier, and would recall another called "That's All There Is" a few years later. He sang "That's All There Is to That" for President Eisenhower at the 1956 Republican convention, but there doesn't seem to be any political message to it. It's a sensitive song of lost love and heartbreak as Cole sings it, and fatalistic in the extreme in Jones's version. No sentimentality. You love, you lose, and that's all there is to that. Richard Wyands is the instrumental star on this one. The song was written by Clyde Otis, who went on to a distinguished career as a songwriter and producer, but this was how it started for him: the Nat "King" Cole version of this song was his first hit.
"Easy Living" was written by movie composer Ralph Rainger, but it's become a jazz standard, thanks in great part to the 1937 version by Billie Holiday with Lester Young and Teddy Wilson. Jones stays close to what Lady Day did with the song--it's virtually an homage to the great singer who had died just months before.. The main solo here is Winchester, but Nelson very nearly steals the show with a much briefer one. It's interesting to compare Jones's 1960 recording with Holiday's 1937 recording, an era when the band, not the singer, was the star, and Holiday doesn't enter until more than halfway through the recording.
The Eddie Heywood "Canadian Sunset" was a big instrumental hit for Heywood in 1956, and many vocal versions followed. The lyrics by Norman Gimbel ("Killing Me Softly with His Song," English lyrics for "The Girl from Ipanema") sound a little tacked on, but not the way Jones sings them. Winchester propels her along for a snappy two and a half minutes, just the right length for a 45 RPM single, which this was.
Jones returns to Harry Warren for "I Only Have Eyes For You." a 1930s song which had been a big hit in a 1959 doowop version by the Flamingos. Jones echoes the Flamingos as she starts into the song, but soon takes it in her own direction, which is solid jazz singer. This is another 45-length cut, at just over three minutes, and I would have released it as a single. It's a great song, it's been a hit, and Jones takes it that step farther. But "That's All There Is to That" (not so short) and "Canadian Sunset" were the only singles from the album ("Canadian Sunset" would be rereleased as a single on the flip side of "Don't Go to Strangers"), and they didn't chart, so maybe Bob Weinstock decided that Jones was more an album kinda gal.
This is an interesting album in that some of 1960's finest jazz soloists (Nelson is sparingly used) are on the session, but there aren't any extended solos. And it works. Nothing wrong with tight. And when they do solo, as in Lerner and Loewe's "Almost Like Being in Love," which is about evenly divided between Jones's vocals and an instrumental break by Wyands and Winchester, the improvisation is tight, inventive, and...killer.
Much has been made of Jones's Billie Holiday influence. I didn't hear it so much in the first session--Dinah Washington came more to mind-- but it's definitely happening here, and it's all to the good.
The session would see daylight in two parcels, the 1961 release Something Nice ("That's All There Is to That," "Easy Living," "Canadian Sunset," "I Only Have Eyes for You") and 1963's Hollar.
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