Diane Schuur
A police captain's daughter from Auburn, Wash., Schuur, 30, is a jazz-pop singer with mounds of style and flash. Though this is her first national album, she has sung at the Monterey Jazz Festival and appeared with saxophonist Stan Getz (whom she describes as her mentor) during his 1982 performance at the White House. She uses her penetrating voice and white-blues approach on this eclectic collection. It includes such peripheral standards as Teach Me Tonight and The Very Thought of You, along with an old Mildred Bailey favorite, I'll Close My Eyes. Such is Schuur's ability to impose her personality on these songs that it doesn't seem at all conflicting to mix them with such current tunes as Billy Joel's New York State of Mind and Jackson Browne's Rock Me on the Water. There is also a lovely version of Amazing Grace, with Schuur singing and playing piano, accompanied on keyboards by her co-producer, Dave Grusin. The line "Was blind, but now I see" is all the more poignant because Schuur, rendered blind at birth by a hospital accident, indeed demonstrates a most vivid musical vision. (GRP)
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