jazz releases of all time. It received immediate critical acclaim on its release. Acclaimed Music, a website which aggregates musical accolades, names ...Hours the 3rd most acclaimed album of the 1950s (...Swingin' Lovers! being one place behind it), with only Kind of Blue by Miles Davis and Elvis Presley's self-titled début album in front. It also names the album the 322nd-most-acclaimed album of all time. In 2000, it was voted number 359 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums. Stephen Thomas Erlewine commented in AllMusic that the album had an authentic melancholy mood, and is "one of Sinatra's most jazz-oriented performances". Another critic called the album "...perhaps the definitive musical evocation of loneliness". Writing for The New Yorker, Andy Friedman credits In the Wee Small Hours with changing the purpose of an LP from a mere collection of singles into an art form capable of high literature. Jazz historian Scott Yanow described the album as "Sinatra often mourning lost love and sounding a bit desolate but ultimately hopeful." Accolades Legacy The album marks a turning point for Sinatra, the beginning of Sinatra's "mature" singing style, carrying with it both depth of emotive expression and willingness to experiment rhythmically. Sinatra's relationship with Gardner had previously largely been unaccepted by the general public. John Rockwell believes it was this album, because of the genuine emotional palette on display, that changed the perception of the "validity" of the ill-fated romance. Charles Granata opines that this album of ballads best defines Sinatra and the era in which it was recorded. Based largely on Sinatra's reputation, this album helped change the "tough guy" image, allowing for a larger range of acceptable emotional responses from men, which might previously have been perceived as for wimps. Directly before Sinatra's funeral service, songs from "the Ava album" were played by a trio led by Bill Miller. The title track, "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning", has been recorded by a number of artists following Sinatra's version, including Johnny Hartman, Astrud Gilberto, Lou Rawls, Carly Simon, Art Blakey, Count Basie and His Orchestra, Andy Williams, Wes Montgomery, Ruby Braff, Jamie Cullum, John Mayer, Susan Wong, Curtis Stigers (on his 2009 album Lost in Dreams) and many others. In his autobiography, B.B. King speaks about how he was a "Sinatra nut" and how he went to bed every night listening to In the Wee Small Hours. In