With
Like Yesterday,
Beverly Kenney updates a series of pop standards with a formula rooted in the archly modern sound of Eisenhower-era jazz. Experienced decades after the fact, the album boasts a timelessness that renders its basic conceits of time and place moot, especially given that the fierce intelligence of
Kenney's phrasing and the sultry depth of her vocals contrast so sharply with the
Doris Day stereotypes associated with the period in question. Backed by a small but exemplary supporting cast including guitarist
Chuck Wayne and reedist
Jerome Richardson,
Kenney eschews embellishment and excess in favor of lean, taut arrangements that emphasize emotional context, Her readings of familiar songs like "More Than You Know" and "A Sunday Kind of Love" possess a startling intimacy.