1959 · Album
Book of Ballads
Recorded 1959 · Not specified in provided source material · Arranger: Frank Hunter
Frank Hunter's Space for Carmen McRae
McRae's readings pulse with energy and life, summoning rich new meaning from familiar lyrics.
Book of Ballads finds Carmen McRae working with arranger Frank Hunter on a set of standards drawn straight from the Great American Songbook. What matters here is not reinvention — McRae wasn't interested in that — but permission. Hunter's arrangements give her room to move inside these songs without fighting the orchestration. The piano trio anchored by Don Abney sits behind rather than under her, which means you hear exactly what McRae is doing with the melody and the words.
Take "When I Fall in Love" or "Isn't It Romantic?" — songs that had been sung to death by 1959. McRae doesn't dodge the familiarity; she walks straight into it and finds something worth saying anyway. She brings uncommon care and intelligence to the lyrics, the kind of attention that makes you hear lines you thought you already knew. The album doesn't try to sound modern or urgent. It's a jazz singer and a small group doing standard songs the way they understood them: with craft, with thought, and without apology.
AllMusic reviewer Jason Ankeny awarded the album four stars and caught what makes this work: Hunter and Abney provide backings that are nuanced and deliberately restrained, which gives McRae the space to do what she does best — sing. By this point in her career, McRae had already recorded widely, but Book of Ballads is worth seeking out as a clean example of how a good arranger and a serious singer can make well-worn material feel considered and alive. This isn't a peak or a turning point. It's a solid session, well-made and well-played, and it stands up.
Who's playing
Joe Benjamindouble bass
Don Abneypiano
Charlie Smithmembranophone
