Less well known than Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, or Sarah Vaughan, Betty Carter nonetheless remains one of the greatest jazz singers in history. With a style entirely her own and an improvisational skill worthy of the greatest soloists, she was thrust into the spotlight through her duets with Ray Charles before achieving belated recognition at nearly 60, when the prestigious Verve label signed her and reissued a large part of her work. At the initiative of double bassist Jasen Weaver, Spanish singer Pepa Niebla takes on the repertoire of one of the rare singer-composer-arrangers in jazz history for an afternoon that smells sweetly of standards and jazz history.
