Search - Jeri Southern :: Southern Breeze / Coffee, Cigarettes & Memories

First and Last

06/15/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Southern Breeze" was the first of Jeri's three albums on Roulette, a great Marty Paich-arranged album with a scorching vocal on "Porgy" and a lot else going for it. "Coffee..." was the last Roulette album, arranged hauntingly by Lennie Hayton, who really knew how to showcase Jeri's voice and style. This is one of the truly great torch albums, a legend in its time. Both albums add up to great listening and you'll play them over and over because there's so much to hear each time in Jeri's interpretations."

Torch music of the highest quality

Peter Durward Harris | Leicester England | 01/24/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Two albums from 1958 filled with love songs from an even earlier era sung by what I regard as the finest torch singer of the lot - that's what you get here. eri knew her limitations and worked within them, singing only ballads with only a little variation in tempo, which won't suit everybody but I love it. On these albums, Jeri is backed by an orchestra, which manages to restrain itself nicely.



Drawing on songs composed by some of America's finest songwriters of the first half of the last century (Cole Porter, Hoagy Carmichael, Irving Berlin, Yip Harburg and others), these two albums feature a few famous songs such as Lazy bones and Yesterdays, but however famous or obscure the songs, Jeri's performances are impeccable.



There are so many great songs here but among the highlights are Down with love, Ridin' high, I like the likes of you, Spring will be a little late this year, Deep in a dream and Maybe I love you too much.



If you are a fan of Jeri's music, or if you enjoy the music of Peggy Lee, Julie London, June Christie, Gogi Grant and other similar singers, you'll love this twofer."