JAZZ SPOTLIGHT

DEE DEE BRIDGEWATER

“Keeping Tradition”

Verve

* * *

Best known to audiences overseas, Bridgewater recorded this session in Paris with a European rhythm section. “Les Feuilles Mortes” (“Autumn Leaves”) comes off well in both French and English. She is at her best on the medium-tempo swingers, as Horace Silver’s “Sister Sadie,” and such ballads as “I’m a Fool to Want You” and “I Fall in Love Too Easily.” Her weaknesses show in the too-hasty treatments of “Just One of Those Things” (with unneeded scatting) and “What a Little Moonlight Can Do,” still a dumb song after 59 years.

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