What's the enigmatic creator of ‘Ode To Billie Joe’ and ‘Fancy’ doing in Jazzwise then? A good question, and one easily answered. Over her short but productive recording career (just four years, but seven albums, several tours, prestige shows at venues such as the London Palladium, and multiple TV series), the trailblazing Mississippian tried her hand at just about every genre imaginable – folk, country, pop, swamp-rock, blues, vaudeville, blue-eyed soul, show tunes and even early takes on what decades later became known as ‘Americana’ – and always came out on top.

In late 1968, after the commerially successful but artistically patchy Bobbie Gentry and Glen Campbell album, Her Bobness decided she wanted to tap into the spirit of her favourite singers, including Billie Holiday, Nancy Wilson and Julie London and experiment with jazz singing. So early the following year she returned to the studio to cut a selection of standards including Holiday's ‘God Bless The Child’, Irving Berlin's ‘Supper Time’, ‘Stormy’, ‘Here's That Rainy Day’ and a couple of Bacharach-David tunes, among others. Sadly, the album never saw the light of day and she chose not to continue with this particular direction.

The music lay forgotten in the Capitol vaults until Gentry expert and archivist Andrew Batt dug eight songs up for inclusion on the award-winning The Girl From Chickasaw County box set of 2018. Those songs from the so-called ‘lost jazz album’ are issued again on this new LP, and appear for the first time on vinyl; along with an unreleased take of ‘Hushabye Mountain’ and an unissued and jaw-droppingly lovely Gentry original called ‘I Didn't Know’.

The 10 tracks on this album -mostly featuring just Gentry, an acoustic guitar and a double bass – are among the very best things she ever recorded. Her smoky Southern drawl, close mic'ed and intimate, is a superb match for the material, which is as intelligently chosen as you'd expect.

Interestingly, these recordings mark the end of her personal and musical relationship with long-time producer Kelly Gordon (much of this album was thus produced by Gentry herself), which may explain why the recording was shelved. This is a pity, because a series of intimate jazz albums by the elusive but supernaturally gifted Gentry, would have been something to celebrate (while we're on this riff, isn't it a pity that one of England's most outstanding singers, Dusty Springfield, never recorded an out-and-out jazz album too?) and The Windows of The World is a tantalising glimpse of a parallel career that might have been. Batt's excellent mixing, mastering and sleevenotes; and Jazzwise contributor Val Wilmer's fine photographs on the sleeve are the icing on the cake.