NEW RELEASES

NNENNA FREELON

“Heritage”

Columbia

** 1/2

Freelon’s promise as shown in her debut album is not carried forward here. A few cuts, such as “Comes Love,” work well, but too many of these songs (“Prelude to a Kiss,” “Bewitched,” “Something to Live For”) have been done by too many other superior singers. There are a few fair scat interludes and a couple of welcome instrumental solos by Kenny Barron on piano and Christian McBride. As for Freelon’s use of “Jack and Jill went up the hill” as an introduction to “Young and Foolish,” it is, well, just foolish.

New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).