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Title: Marty, how could you let her down?
Review: Marty Paich arranged the best albums by everyone from Mel Torme and Anita O'Day to Sammy Davis Jr, so it's a bit of a head-scratcher why this one is so lacklustre. It alternates brassy big-band arrangements on some tunes with a rhythm-section-plus-strings approach to others, but none of it ranks with his best work. And rather amusingly in light of this album's title, even the selection of tunes isn't really spectacular, with only the old-time gospelly "I Want a Roof Over My Head" really making me sit up and take notice. None of this is to fault Humes, however. Her perpetually youthful voice, her infectuous joy and her innate feeling for a song are unmatched. Her real masterpiece was probably her next album on Contemporary, Swingin' With Humes, which put her in front of a small group of stellar proportions (pianist Wynton Kelly, along with West Coast stars Teddy Edwards, Joe Gordon, Leroy Vinnegar and Frank Butler) on a far-more memorable set of standards.
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