At Home/Around Midnight

London, Julie

album cover

Music for That Swanky Cocktail Party

Jazz needs its sex kittens—the gals like Julie London, perpetually coy vocalists who don't break new ground, but instead offer an irresistible form of pillow talk. When instrumental jazz was evolving at a dizzying rate in the 1950s, singers like London—who, at the time, were not even considered jazz singers—provided necessary contrast, offsetting the instrumentalists' herculean feats with less abstract, playful treatments of familiar songs.

Perhaps best known as the foxy nurse on TV's Emergency! in the '70s, London spent much of the '50s as a chanteuse, recording a series of LPs with covers that presented her as an upmarket nightclub ingenue. Two of the most satisfying—At Home, which was recorded with a small jazz group in her living room, and Around Midnight, which showcases London with a large studio orchestra—were reissued on a single disc in 1996, and they offer an ideal way to appreciate this tempestuous talent. London knew how to sing sweet and low, and how to use the microphone to make it seem as though she were right beside you; her version of "you've Changed," from At Home (1959), is a series of whispers punctuated by the alert chords of guitarist Al viola. Surprisingly, she conveys the same casual air when backed by a larger ensemble—see the breathy "Lush Life," with strings. No matter what's going on around her, London always maintains her sultry cool, slipping in half-step implications and flirty flourishes that gently expand these familiar songs.

Genre: Vocals
Released: 1996, EMI
Key Tracks: "You've Changed," "Lush Life."
Catalog Choice: Julie Is Her Name
Next Stop: Anita O'Day: Anita Swings the Most
Book Page: 454

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