First making her reputation as vocalist with Stan Kenton's orchestra, June Christy was the ideal vocalist for the high-art ambitions of the progressive jazz movement. Her diction was impeccable, her phrasing often inspired, and as this reissue of her classic Something Cool--augmented by another 12 tracks recorded between 1953 and 1955--so ably demonstrates, her technique was extraordinary, allowing her to navigate the most abstract melody with accurate pitch and rhythmic confidence. That's no small feat, for the orchestrations that Pete Rugolo fashioned for these recordings are often harmonically dense, with layered chords, sudden interpolations, and odd metric shifts. Few of the songs could be called standards. Many have melodies that are hardly hummable. Some, like Rugolo's own "Look out up There," seem bop inspired, but Christy not only sings them, she makes them her own, balancing execution with a subtly nuanced, expressive dimension. The results are often dramatic, detached, and highly memorable, whether the song is well known--"This Time the Dream's on Me," "Midnight Sun"--or as obscure as "Kicks" or the previously unreleased, anonymously penned "Love Doesn't Live Here Anymore." This is an intriguing view of a gifted singer and a window on a remarkable and overlooked repertoire. --Stuart Broomer