As the jazz critic Nat Hentoff writes in the original liner notes, “I can't recall any evolution quite like that of Teresa Brewer.” Brewer, a successful pop singer, recorded her signature song ‘Music! Music! Music!’ in 1949 and enjoyed a string of hits over the next decade. Then, having raised a family, and enthused about music again following her second marriage to her former A&R man Bob Thiele, a remarkable second chapter saw Brewer reinvent herself as a jazz singer. For Thiele's Flying Dutchman imprint she recorded her 1973 album of Bessie Smith songs with Count Basie and his big band, with sparkling arrangements by Thad Jones. Standouts include the vibrant, life-affirming textures of ‘Baby Won't You Please Come Home’ and a supercharged ‘After You've Gone’. Suitably impressed with the Bessie Smith album, Duke Ellington asked Brewer to record with his band. The Ellington songbook, which proved to be the Duke's final studio recording, ranges from classics (a swinging ‘Satin Doll’, a breakneck ‘I'm Beginning To See The Light’) to lesser-known gems such as ‘I've Got To Be A Rug Cutter’, one of three tracks featuring Bunny Briggs on unison vocals, to two Ellington originals that had never been recorded before, ‘It's Kinda Lonesome Out Tonight’ and ‘Poco Mucho’.