The Very Best of Diane Schuur is a fine collection of thirteen of Diane Schuur's most popular recordings, featuring such tracks as "All Right, OK, You Win (I'm in Love With You)," "Try a Little Tenderness," "Sunday Kind of Love," "Deed I Do," "Time for Love," "'Round Midnight," "Stormy Monday Blues," "Deedles' Blues," and "New York State of Mind."

"Some Other Time," vocalist and pianist Diane Schuur's February 2008 Concord release, is a recording of songs by jazz artists whom she first discovered via her parents during her childhood and adolescent years. The album features songs by George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Sammy Cahn, Rodgers and Hammerstein and more. The set also includes a surprisingly mature-sounding rendition of "September in the Rain," recorded at the Holiday Inn in Tacoma in 1964 when Schuur was only ten years old. "Some Other Time" is, among other things, Schuur's celebration of the music of her parents' generation, and a tribute to her late mother on the fortieth anniversary of her death at the young age of 31.

For her third release on the Concord label she revels in late night moods and matters. The album's thirteen songs were written specifically for Schuur by Barry Manilow, who also co-produced the set.

It's a good match, as both Manilow and Schuur have drawn from or even immersed themselves in pop material as well as jazz. A song like "Stay Away From Bill" owes as much to Tin Pan Alley and Broadway as to more traditional jazz realms. Elsewhere, the settings mix a range of nocturnal rhythms and colors, from the light bossa-nova of "I'll Be There" to the saucy swing of "Southwind" and the torch balladry of "Good-bye My Love." The album closes with one of a handful of duets, this one with none other than Manilow himself, who offers up nicely nuanced subtleties in his pairing. --David Greenberger