Betty Carter (2)

RAY CHARLES & BETTY CARTER - Self-Titled (1961)

1.Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye
2.You and I
3.Intro: "Goodbye"/"We'll Be Together Again"
4.People Will Say We're in Love
5.Cocktails for Two
6.Side by Side
7.Baby, It's Cold Outside
8.Together
9.For All We Know
10.Takes Two to Tango
11.Alone Together
12.Just You, Just Me
13.But On the Other Hand Baby
14.I Never See Maggie Alone
15.I Like to Hear It Sometime

Ray Charles and Betty Carter is a 1961 album by Betty Carter and Ray Charles. The pair's recording of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" on the album topped the R&B charts. A 1988 CD/LP re-issue included three bonus tracks and the 1998 Rhino Records re-issue combined, on a single CD, the original Ray Charles and Betty Carter with the complete Dedicated to You.

BETTY CARTER - IT'S MY TURN (1976)

1. Music Maestro, Please / Swing Brother Swing
2. I Was Telling Him About You
3. Wagon Wheels
4. New Blues (You Purr)
5. Most Gentlemen Don't Like Love
6. Making Dreams Come True
7. Open the Door
8. Just Friends / Star Eyes
9. No More Words

Personnel:
* Betty Carter - vocals
* John Hicks - piano
* Walter Booker - bass

Details:
Arguably the most adventurous female jazz singer of all time, Betty Carter was an idiosyncratic stylist and a restless improviser who pushed the limits of melody and harmony as much as any bebop horn player. The husky-voiced Carter was capable of radical, off-the-cuff re-workings of whatever she sang, abruptly changing tempos and dynamics, or rearranging the lyrics into distinctive, off-the-beat rhythmic patterns. She could solo for 20 minutes, scat at lightning speed, or drive home an emotion with wordless, bluesy moans and sighs. She wasn't quite avant-garde, but she was definitely out. Yet as much as Carter was fascinated by pure, abstract sound, she was also a sensitive lyric interpreter when she chose, a tender and sensual ballad singer sometimes given to suggestive asides. Her wild unpredictability kept her marginalized for much of her career, and she never achieved the renown of peers like Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, or Carmen McRae. What was more, her exacting musical standards and assertive independence limited her recorded output somewhat. But Carter stuck around long enough to receive her proper due; her unwillingness to compromise eventually earned her the respect of the wider jazz audience, and many critics regarded her as perhaps the purest jazz singer active in the '80s and '90s. AMG/Steve Huey