A very hep person I know -- I mean, she can pick out a Johnny Griffin sax solo playing on a sound system in a crowded Park Slope bar -- was over at my place earlier today, and going through the vinyl stacks on my floor, and asked, 'Who's Jackie Paris?' She was looking at an Impulse LP called 'The Song Is Paris,' recorded in January and May 1962, arranged and conducted by Bobby Scott. Side one of the album is pretty lush, starting with a jam on 'Duke's Place,' and hitting its peak on the penultimate track, "'Tis Autumn." Side two is a small combo session with Hank Jones on piano. The whole album has a real early '60s Playboy vibe, with unusual song choices (I'd never heard the song 'If Love Is Good To Me,' for example, or heard of the people who wrote it). If you like Chet Baker's vocal recordings, you'd probably like this album.

But my point is, there are so many artists out there like Jackie Paris, who had little bursts of fame, or at least recording contracts on real record labels, who have vanished from the radar. You find them in used album bins. Like, the other day, I was at my local music emporium, browsing the two-for-$5 racks, and found a Capitol album by Dakota Staton called 'Softly,' arrangements by Benny Carter. She sings 'Dedicated To You' on it, and 'I Can't Get Started.' and 'The Very Thought of You.' So I picked another LP from that bargain section (Linda Lewis' "Lark," if you're curious) and for a fiver and change, had two things to add to the stack of things on the floor.

The Staton album is a little string-heavy for my taste, almost like Gordon Jenkins' work with Nat King Cole, but man, the singing is for real. And you can't hear "Dedicated To You" and "I Can't Get Started" too often, if you ask me. Her "Dedicated To You" has the verse (which Johnny Hartman's classic version doesn't), and "I Can't Get Started" is impeccable: it's the epitome of the I-have-everything-but-you song, with witty specificity and resignation, and she sings it beautifully. Perfect snowy-Saturday music.

The good thing is, everything is out there. Just because something is obscure, doesn't mean someone hasn't archived it, or re-released it, or posted homemade YouTube videos of it. Hell, there's even a documentary film about Jackie Paris that I have to check out now:

But history can get slippery, and here's the irony: I wanted to post Dakota Staton singing "Dedicated To You," because it's simple and lovely, and I found someone's video of it. I could swear, however, that the first still photograph illustrating the song is of Nancy Wilson (Ms. Staton is accurately represented in the rest of it). Ouch.