As this popular Manhattan-based singer and stage actress demonstrates, something beautiful always happens, and a special passion is unleashed when a talented fan of a legend decides to pay tribute to that inspiration. From the late '30s on, Maxine Sullivan kept great company -- starring in films with Dorothy Lamour and Dick Powell, singing on Broadway with Louis Armstrong, and on the radio with bandleader/first husband John Kirby. Stark has a stylish, supple voice that always seems eager to tell a story, whether in a cool, swinging style (I'm Crazy 'Bout My Baby) or in more heartfelt, plaintive tones (Restless), and she enhances the emotional potential by working through arrangements by Carnegie Hall Jazz Band conductor Michael Abene. Abene's taste for subtlety is perfectly suited to the various moods Stark seeks to convey, and he is especially effective teaming her with only one accompanying instrument -- James Chirillo's gentle acoustic guitar on Spring Isn't Everything, and his own lively piano at the start of the eventually grooving Massachusetts and Keepin' Out of Mischief Now. Stark, of course, never met her idol, but finds a spirited connecting point by playing off the lush and sometimes sassy trumpet contributions of Warren Vache, who often backed Sullivan in her later years. This is a must for Sullivan fans, and for jazz fans will be a lovely introduction to a great East Coast singer who looks forward even as she reaches back. ~ Jonathan Widran, Rovi

1		Someday Sweetheart
2		I'm Crazy 'Bout My Baby (And My Baby's Crazy 'Bout Me)
3		Restless
4		Spring Isn't Everything
5		Massachusetts
6		Keepin' Out of Mischief Now
7		Harlem Butterfly
8		It's Crazy (But I'm in Love)
9		A Hundred Years From Today
10		Loch Lomand