I've re-discovered a few old mix cassette tapes I made over the years. And I'm playing them.

This episode was inspired by one tape of mostly jazz vocalists--and mostly female, which I put together in 1988. What I realized in listening to it many years later is that it wasn't just the singing and even the song that made me want to record it onto the tape---but the terrific musicians who were backing the singer.

I'll make a list, in order, of the musicians playing on each track. Which isn't to say that the singers aren't also great; but so often those backup musicians go unhearalded. And I noticed the vast majority of these are on Mercury records.

Singers include (not in any particular order) the likes of Dinah Washington, Blossom Dearie, Sarah Vaughan, Patti Cathcart, Ernestine Anderson, Christine Duncan, Helen Merrill, The Real Group. Oscar Peterson, Thelma Grayson, Monica Zetterlund, Joe Williams, Rita Reys, and Shirley Horn.