• 01. Thou Swell 01:20
Performed by Carmen McRae, Ray Brown, Mickey Roker
Music by Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart
Published by Warner Bros, Inc.
• 02. This Is Always 04:46
Performed by Carmen McRae, Ray Brown, Mickey Roker
Music by Mack Gordon, Harry Warren
Published by Warner Bros, Inc.
• 03. Old Devil Moon 04:52
Performed by Carmen McRae, Ray Brown, Mickey Roker
Music by Burton Lane, E Y Harburg
Published by Chappell & Co, Inc.
• 04. No More Blues 06:03
Performed by Carmen McRae, Ray Brown, Mickey Roker
Music by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Vinicius de Moraes, Jon Hendricks
Published by Corcovado Music Corp.
• 05. Two for the Road 02:35
Performed by Carmen McRae, Ray Brown, Mickey Roker
Music by Henry Mancini
Published by Warner Bros, Inc.
• 06. A Prelude to a Kiss 04:15
Performed by Carmen McRae, Ray Brown, Mickey Roker
Music by Duke Ellington
Published by Sony ATV Harmony
• 07. The Man I Love 04:00
Performed by Carmen McRae, Ray Brown, Mickey Roker
Music by George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin
Published by Warner Bros, Inc.
• 08. Beautiful Moons Ago 03:42
Performed by Carmen McRae, Ray Brown, Mickey Roker
Music by Nat King Cole, Oscar Moore
Published by Jatap Publishing Co.
• 09. Getting Some Fun Out of Love 02:30
Performed by Carmen McRae, Ray Brown, Mickey Roker
Music by Edgar Leslie, Johnny Burke
Published by Warner Bros, Inc.
• 10. What a Little Moonlight Can Do 02:24
Performed by Carmen McRae, Ray Brown, Mickey Roker
Music by Harry Woods
Published by Warner Bros, Inc.

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• Carmen McRae - voice
• Eric Gunnison - piano
• Ray Brown - bass
• Mickey Roker - drums

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Backed up by a stellar rhythm section, Ray Brown, Mickey Roker and Eric Gunnison, Carmen McRae sings and swings in this mid 80's recording at her very best. Eight years younger than her idol, Billie Holiday, Carmen McRae was a contemporary of Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. Carmen McRae always had a nice voice but it was her behind-the-beat phrasing and ironic interpretations of lyrics that made her most memorable. She studied piano early on and had her first important job singing with Benny Carter's big band in 1944, but it would be another decade before her career really had much momentum. McRae married and divorced Kenny Clarke in the 1940s, worked with Count Basie and Mercer Ellington. McRae would record pretty steadily up to 1989 and, although her voice was higher in the 1950s and her phrasing would be even more laidback in later years, her general style and approach did not change much through the decades. Championed in the 1950s by Ralph Gleason, Carmen McRae was fairly popular throughout her career. Among her most interesting recording projects were participating in Dave Brubeck's the Real Ambassadors with Louis Armstrong, cutting an album of live duets with Betty Carter, being accompanied by Dave Brubeck and George Shearing, and closing her career with brilliant tributes to Thelonious Monk and Sarah Vaughan.

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Jazz singer Carmen McRae's words compiled by bassist Ray Brown

"What Do The Words Say?" asks jazz vocal legend Carmen McRae on the album with the same title (Blue Music Group, 2009). The album is 10 tracks of jazz standards, typical 1980's repertoire of McRae, incl. her arrangements of No More Blues, Old... Full Story