With Nancy Wilson & George Shearing’s The Swingin’s Mutual, as a model, Washington, DC-based vocalist Darden Purcell and co-producer, arranger, guitarist & husband Shawn Purcell, envisioned a modern take on that quintessential 1960s sound for her third recording as a leader.

Enlisting the dynamic New York vibraphonist Joe Locke, along with pianist Todd Simon, Jeff Reed on bass and drummer Todd Harrison, her sextet tackles the virtuosic soli passages of Shawn’s arrangement of Willow Weep for Me.

Indeed, Locke’s haunting introduction sets up the poignant reading of You’ve Changed, and the band swings hard behind Darden’s rapid-fire, Annie Ross-inspired lyrics on Chatterbox.

1. Willow Weep for Me
2. Love’s Got Me in a Lazy Mood
3. Come Back to Me
4. It’s a Most Unusual Day
5. I Concentrate on You
6. A Cottage for Sale
7. Estrada Branca (This Happy Madness)
8. Chatterbox
9. Estate
10. Taking a Chance on Love
11. You’ve Changed

The album opens on the low slung swing found within Willow Weep For Me and the veritably glistening Love’s Got Me In A Lazy Mood, and they are followed by the buoyant Come Back To Me, the simply sparkling It’s a Most Unusual Day, the upbeat foot-tapper I Concentrate on You, and then we get the lushly sculpted A Cottage for Sale.

Along next is the more diligently formed Estrada Branca (This Happy Madness) and the upright bass-led beauty Chatterbox, then we get the opulently lavish ballad Estate, the album rounding out on the perky Taking a Chance on Love, closing on the sad loss of love within You’ve Changed.

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