Dee Dee Bridgewater: Love And Peace A Tribute To Horace Silver (1995)

A totally different bag than the Billie Holiday album, although this one too is a tribute.  For one thing, this is from Bridgewater's French period, and is recorded with mostly French musicians, in France, for a French label (but sold in the States by Verve).  It's not at all acid jazz, but it has a bit of that delirious European mid-'90s hipness that United Future Organization, US3, and others had around that time.  Dig her blowing kisses on the cover:  it's a very flirtatious record.

For another, Bridgewater has different relationship with Silver than with Holiday.  Acc. to the wikipedia, her husband sang with Silver.  And Silver turns around and guests on two tracks on this record (Jimmy Smith does the same).  It's a much less reverent record, much less of a recital and much more of a jam.

It's also different that in this case she's not celebrating a vocalist, and therefore seeing what she can do differently, but singing songs written by an instrumentalist and primarily (exclusively?) known as instrumentals.  This gives her a lot more room to play, and in some ways maybe a little less impetus to present songs;  here she usually sounds like one of the band, and scats so much that you might even think her a horn.  And in spite of Silver's presence, she pretty much owns these songs, for the duration of this record at least.

Dig "Song For My Father," which she steals not only from Silver himself (that's him on piano) but from Messrs. Becker and Fagen.  Or "Filthy McNasty."  Her solo here is just pure champagne.