There are singers who let it fly from deep within and pour out red-faced bellows complete with bulging eyes and pulsating neck cords. They rip it up with big bands and belt it out until the sun comes up, then follow with swashbuckling encores that bring down the house with slaps-on-the-back and flamenco table top dances.
Then there’s Julie. No gala musical fanfare or big-sound glitter. No jokes, no jugglers, no soft-shoe. Just a blues guitar, a well-placed bass, a drummer’s light brush… and Julie. The combo provides a mere musical skeleton, a framework that serves only to complement the singer; it doesn’t try to compete. The combination is distinctively blues… and distinctively Julie. Julie is a mysterious, sultry woman with a moist-eyed singing style and real feeling for loneliness…

One in a long series of Julie London records, this set features the sultry but subtle singer on a dozen standards, each of which she dedicates to a different male singer. No dates or personnel information are given other than the LP stating that Andre Previn arranged for the backing orchestra. Although not essential, this is a worthwhile set, with London adding sensuality to such songs as "Learnin' the Blues," "When I Fall in Love," "The More I See You," and "Angel Eyes."

Exotic and Latin albums were big deals in the 1950s and early '60s, and singers as diverse as Dean Martin, Lena Horne, and Peggy Lee were recording with castanets and bongo drums. Peggy Lee was so successful at the style that she cut two albums of light pseudo-Latin jazz in 1960. Like Peggy Lee, Julie London combined a restrained vocal approach with jazz phrasing and a cool attitude with icy sex appeal. But while London had Lee's stripped-down musical approach, she just didn't share her unrelenting rhythmic vocal drive or her innate feeling for exotic rhythms. It doesn't help that London is paired with arranger Ernie Freeman, who was usually better at crafting Nashville and soft rock style charts than Latin jazz arrangements. This isn't a bad album - London sounds casual and confident throughout - but it is a rather bland one, and isn't blandness what these types of exotica albums are supposed to be fighting against…

In 1959, sultry vocalist Julie London was really coming into her own as a singer. Her worldwide hit "Cry Me a River" was four years behind her, and while she would never attain that level of fame as a recording artist for the rest of her career, her ability to interpret a song was at its strongest in the late '50s and early '60s. Liberty Records' Julie…At Home finds the vocalist comfortably in front of a small jazz combo highlighted by vibraphonist Emil Richards and guitarist Al Viola. The sessions seem relaxed and casual, often with the lyrics slyly slipping from London's lips, at once sophisticated and sensual. The remarkable thing about Julie…At Home is that it was in fact recorded in her own living room, which proved to be the ideal surroundings for these warm and romantic standards.

In 1960, pop vocalist Julie London was really cranking out albums for the successful label Liberty Records. The success of her 1955 hit "Cry Me a River" put Liberty into overdrive and London responded by making some of the strongest records of her career. Her ability to interpret a song was at its strongest in the late '50s and early '60s, as is evidenced on the shimmering Around Midnight. While some of her best recordings were front of small jazz combos, Around Midnight proves that London was just as effective in front of larger orchestras and bands. The drowsy "Black Coffee" and lazy "Lush Life" typify the late-night feel of the album, leading right into "The Wee Small Hours of the Morning."

Julie London wasn't really a jazz singer, but she possessed a definite jazz feeling and many of her finest albums (such as Julie Is Her Name and Julie…At Home) feature small-group jazz backings. About the Blues was aimed at the 1950s pop market, but it may just be her best orchestral session. Since downbeat torch songs were London's specialty, the album features an excellent selection of nocturnal but classy blues songs that play to her subtle strengths instead of against them. Likewise, Russ Garcia's clever arrangements bleed jazz touches and short solos over the solitary strings and big-band charts. Like June Christy, London usually included a couple of new songs in with a selection of standards, and her husband, Bobby Troup, wrote two excellent numbers for the album. One of them, the emotionally devastating "Meaning of the Blues," is the album's highlight, and was turned into a jazz standard after Miles Davis recorded it the same year for Miles Ahead.

Jazz critic Will Friedwald has stated that Julie London's records were so popular in the 1950s mainly because she looked so drop-dead gorgeous on the album covers. The marketing hook behind Calendar Girl may just be the main example for those critical of London's musical career, since its sleeve has made it a prized collector's item. The famous wraparound cover depicts cheesecake shots of London posed for every month of the year, while original issues of the album included a more-than-suggestive insert photo of the singer stretched out in bed. While Friedwald's correct about London's physical beauty, he's wrong in suggesting that the vocalist didn't have the talent to go along with her looks. Like Chet Baker, Julie London had an extremely limited vocal range but she did the most with what she had, possessing a special knack for torch songs that cast her in the role of a woman constantly being destroyed by love in general and by men in particular…

1958's London By Night is a typically high-class, high quality Julie London album. The standards and original tunes on the disc are strung together in such a way that they form a narrative of a lovelorn woman finding true love, getting dumped, and wandering around sadly until finding romantic redemption in the final song. London specialized in downbeat numbers and even the positive love songs are languid and moody, so they jibe well with the wrist-slashers that make up the majority of the album. Many of London's albums feature a song or two by her husband, Bobby Troup. London By Night is no exception and it features two Troup originals: the opening track, "Well, Sir," and "Just the Way I Am," which closes with the emotionally naked line "What a fool I was to dream that someday you could love me just the way I am"…

3 CD Set of Classic tracks by the Original artists. Featuring; "Sophisticated Lady", "Cry Me a River", "Boy on a Dolphin", "Round Midnight", "Love for Sale", "Blue Moon", "Mad About the Boy", "Let There Be Love", "Our Day Will Come", "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend", "I've Got a Crush on You (digitally remastered)", "Love Letters" & many more…

Lonely Girl (1956). Liberty Records was pleasantly surprised when Julie London's debut album was such a big hit. Julie Is Her Name did contain the hit single "Cry Me a River," but each featured mellow jazz guitar and bass backing - which was considered commercial suicide in 1955. So, instead of changing direction and recording the follow-up Lonely Girl with a full orchestra, Liberty wisely allowed London to strip the accompaniment down even more on the album by dropping the backing down to one instrument. Lone guitarist Al Viola plays gentle Spanish-tinged acoustic behind the hushed vocalist, and it suits London perfectly. While the singer was often chided for her beauty and lack of range, she deftly navigates these ballads without any rhythmic underpinnings to fall back on. London's intense focus on phrasing and lyrics recalls Chet Baker's equally telescopic approach…

Sophisticated Lady (1962). "Sophisticated" is the right word to describe Julie London's cool vocal approach; it can be shoved into the background, but if you listen closely there's a lot of turmoil going on under its seemingly calm surface. Similar to Chet Baker's unruffled way with a lyric, London's self-described "thimble full of a voice" ends up describing how pain hasn't quite iced over all her emotions rather than proving how unfeeling she is. Also like Baker, so many of her best recordings are steeped in the style and mood of laid-back West Coast jazz. Sophisticated Lady is one of a string of records London cut in the early '60s with less of a jazz feel than most of her sessions from the '50s, but it's still a worthy album. If it's not exactly an essential session, it is a good one, and the backing orchestra is to blame for the album's shortcomings - not the vocalist…

The Very Best of Julie London offers an extensive overview of London's recording career with 50 selections she cut for Liberty Records between 1955 and 1969. The tracks are not newly remastered for the most part, but are taken from EMI's series of import two-fers and the domestic reissues Ron Furmanek and Bob Norberg produced in the early '90s. London was an album artist, not a singles artist - she had only one hit single in her long career - but she was a consistent favorite with adult contemporary and vocal jazz audiences and recorded over 20 LPs. Her albums often sustained a certain mood or assembled songs around a theme, but The Very Best of Julie London chops up her albums and rearranges the songs in no particular order - the repertoire and sequencing seem almost random…