Astrud Gilberto's entry in the nicely appointed Verve Jazz Masters compilation series shows exactly why the Brazilian singer is deserving of such an accolade. In her '60s heyday, Gilberto was often derided by jazz purists for her vibrato-less "desafinado" (deliberately slightly off-pitch) singing style and deadpan, childlike voice. But the diminutive bossa nova star has since been a huge influence on dozens of jazz and pop singers. VERVE JAZZ MASTERS is less of a greatest hits package than it is a smartly balanced retrospective of many of Gilberto's best performances. Her biggest hits, "Call Me" and "Summer Samba," are not included, and her signature tune, "The Girl From Ipanema," is only represented by a live take from a 1964 Carnegie Hall concert. The collection places equal emphasis on Gilberto's bossa nova-style interpretations of jazz standards and on her signature Portuguese-language sambas.

This is an essential package! Whoever put this together obviously knew what they were doing, and all is placed in chronological order. Discs 1-3 are a terrific compilation of material from the MGM years, consisting of commercial recordings of soundtrack materal. If no recording was commercially released, the original soundtrack is used-great for such numbers as "Hoe Down" with Mickey Rooney! But the last disc makes this package essential-here is a pristine soundboard recording of Judy's final performance at the Palace Theater, MYC-2/24/52! She was concluding a 19-week engagement, and the atmosphere is electric. Fantastic stuff!

This two-CD set (a reissue of an earlier two-LP set plus six previously unreleased numbers) brings back a memorable Carnegie Hall concert that both features and pays tribute to Ella Fitzgerald. The great singer is joined on a few numbers by a Chick Webb reunion band that has a few of the original members (plus an uncredited Panama Francis on drums). Although the musicians do not get much solo space (why wasn't trumpeter Taft Jordan featured?), the music is pleasing. Fitzgerald performs three exquisite duets with pianist Ellis Larkins and then sits out while the Jazz at the Philharmonic All-Stars romp on a few jams and a ballad medley. Trumpeter Roy Eldridge's emotional flights take honors, although tenorman Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and trombonist Al Grey are also in good form. Fitzgerald comes out for the second half of the show and sings 14 numbers with guitarist Joe Pass (including a pair of tender duets) and the Tommy Flanagan trio.

The dean of American pop vocalists took a different and exciting fork in the road for his third Duets album, recruiting the best Latin vocalists in the world, and rejuvenating classic material like "The Best Is Yet to Come" (featuring Chayanne), "For Once in My Life" (featuring Marc Anthony), "Who Can I Turn To (When Nobody Needs Me)" (featuring Gloria Estefan), "The Way You Look Tonight" (featuring Thalía), and "Return to Me" (featuring ranchera legend Vicente Fernández). Most of the charts are big band – one of the exceptions being the highlight, his duet with Fernández – but crossover fans will note that Bennett's English gives way to his duet partners' Spanish, an intriguing and successful choice.

Featuring 18 songs, including "The Impossible Dream", "Call Me Irresponsible", and "Lollipops and Roses", Greatest Hits is the definitive Jack Jones collection.

After being a premier vocalist in the '60s, Warwick seemed to have hit a stylistic wall by the early '70s. By the time she signed with Warner Bros. in 1970, Warwick attempted many styles and producers. Then Came You, released in 1975, has her teaming with both Jerry Ragovoy and, for one track, Thom Bell. Jerry Ragovoy was a successful producer who had Garnet Mimms and Howard Tate among his credits. For this effort, Ragovoy assembled a strong New York session band, including John Tropea, Leon Pendarvis, and Bob Babbitt. The first track, "Take It From Me," has Warwick getting a more R&B styled production rather than MOR. That was perfect since her voice had matured, attaining an effortless warmth and ease. Here she wasn't so much an interpreter of "great material," her voice and charm were the primary draw. Ragovoy's track "Move Me No Mountain" has a Barry White-styled backing, and Warwick got a chance to be more sensual.

Astrud Gilberto has never been properly anthologized by Verve Records; although they've released a number of compilations over the years, none of them have been definitive, and most of them have been rather skimpy. 1987's The Silver Collection, originally released only in Europe but later imported to North America, is an idiosyncratic selection. It omits "The Girl From Ipanema," her biggest hit, includes all 11 tracks from her 1965 release The Astrud Gilberto Album, and adds on a selection of singles and album tracks recorded from 1965 to 1970 with no particular logic. All that said, however, it's still one of the best compilations available of this idiosyncratic but brilliant singer's '60s material. Jazz purists turn up their noses at Gilberto, correctly pointing out her near total lack of technical ability. However, the Brazilian songbird's appealingly plain voice, with its deliberately wobbly pitch (the "desafinado" style celebrated in Antonio Carlos Jobim's song of that title), total lack of vibrato, and deadpan phrasing, is a delight for those attuned to its charms.

The venerable Charles Aznavour graced his adoring public with a stellar album of material for the new millennium, titled Aznavour 2000. The album tends to sway toward upbeat, jazzy, swingin' numbers, such as the opener, "Le Jazz Est Revenu," "Elle a le Swing au Corps," "La Formule Un," and "Nos Avocats." His voice, always warm and compassionate, is like an old friend, giving this album a feeling of intimacy, although his public spans the globe and numbers in the millions. The shining moments, however, are the ballads, which drip with his eternally stylish and sophisticated melancholy, such as the lovely and heartbreaking "De la Scene a la Seine," a tribute to the late, tragic Italian-Egyptian star Dalida. The downcast "Qu'Avons-Nous Fait de Nos Vingt Ans" echoes of his ancestral Armenia and "Je Danse Avec l'Amour" is a classic-sounding French chanson. "Quand Tu M'Aimes" and the samba-styled "Je Ne Savais Pas" are from his musical Lautrec (based on the life of Tolouse-Lautrec) and offer more variety to this winning and marvelously orchestrated album. A sheer pleasure through and through for fans of the amazing and enduring Charles Aznavour.

Smokey-voiced chanteuse Madeleine Peyroux's third CD is a lovely collection of after-hours ruminations and should confirm her rise to fame. Credit producer Larry Klein for doing a bang-up job with the album's sound: the elegant, pared-down arrangements are all brushed drums, acoustic guitars, and cool organ licks. But of course it's Peyroux's voice that brings it all home–preferably one where the shades are drawn, embers are smoldering in the fireplace, and the white wine is kept dry. Two-thirds of the songs are well-chosen covers, including a duet with k.d. lang on Joni Mitchell's "River"; a relaxed version of Fred Neil's "Everybody's Talkin'," from Midnight Cowboy; a delicately lilting samba take on Leonard Cohen and Anjani Thomas's title track; Serge Gainsbourg's "La Javanaise," performed in the original French; and Charlie Chaplin's "Smile," from Modern Times. The four originals, all coauthored by Peyroux, easily keep up with such august company, especially "I'm All Right"–written with Klein and Walter Becker, it captures the easy sophistication of Becker's regular band, Steely Dan. Fans of Norah Jones (whose collaborator Jesse Harris cowrote three of the songs) should gobble up this album, but Peyroux is no mere imitator: She's her own, very real thing.

Since Dick Haymes, like most of the popular artists of his era (the 1940s), has been the victim of endless low-budget, low-quality European compilations taking advantage of the continent's 50-year copyright limitation, it is refreshing to report that this collection by British label Half Moon consists of recordings licensed from Universal/MCA, copyright holder of Haymes' original Decca recordings. What that means, first, is that the sound quality is noticeably better than what you have to put up with on the fly-by-night competitors. Haymes' 45 singles chart entries on Decca between 1943-1951 are too numerous to be contained on one CD, and this 23-track disc with a 69-minute running time is inevitably missing some hits (notably the Top Fives "The Old Master Painter" and "Maybe It's Because"). But most of Haymes' big solo hits for Decca are included, along with a few of his hit duets with Helen Forrest, and the album can be recommended as providing the highlights of the singer's most popular period.