For a singer who was quite as popular, well-known and long-lived as Chris Connor, touring in late 1950s packages with the likes of Brubeck and Mulligan, after working with Stan Kenton and Claude Thornill, it is surprising her fame hasn’t lasted better. She is well-remembered in Britain for her appearances at Pizza on the Park in the 1990s, with the likes of Duncan Lamont.

This excellent compilation from Acrobat ought to do much to trigger a re-evaluation of her work, focusing on her formative years and her rise to success.

Although she recorded with the two big bands mentioned, she tended to tour with a trio or quartet, and on the first CD the tracks that show her at her best, and as most live audiences would have heard her, are with Ellis Larkins’ trio. He was a great accompanist for Ella, and he does an equally fine job here, prompting the smile in Connor’s voice as she sings ‘I Hear Music’, drawing out her reflective sentiment in ‘What Is There To Say?’, and setting a relaxed tempo for ‘Lullaby of Birdland’ that allows her to make the anodyne lyrics sound as if they actually mean something. When her subsequent quintet is joined by Jay and Kai, she shows that her jazz timing is impeccable, especially on ‘From This Moment On’. John Lewis and Connie Kay moonlight from the MJQ to propel her through a rapid-swinging ‘I Get a Kick Out of You’.

The final CD finds her on Atlantic after stints with Decca, Capitol and Bethlehem, and with Ralph Burns as music director, notably on the album Chris Connor, here in full, which has the most jazz-inflected of his writing, along more contemplative songs backed by the John Lewis quartet. The Burns pieces don’t get better than her infectious swing on ‘Way Out There’ and the Lewis tracks include a miniature masterpiece on Jimmy McHugh’s song ‘Where Are You?’