Dinah Washington: You Don't Know What Love Is

Though she tends to take a backseat to Lady Day and Sassy in most jazz criticism, its difficult to find anything to criticize on Dinah Washingtons 1955 session for Norman Granz. Washingtons delivery, while every bit as knowing as Holidays, emerges from a place of confidence and resilience rather than fragility and despair. Supported by Galbraiths solo guitar work on the opening lines and thereafter by Quincy Jones arrangement of an all-star horn section, with a wonderful solo by Jimmy Cleveland, Dinah delivers a hopefully defiant interpretation of this Raye-DePaul standard, belying an undercurrent of raw emotion that tells the listener she knows exactly what loveand jazzis.