ne of the prevailing clichés of our hobby is the phrase “female vocalist,” which among audiophiles does not apply to all female singers by any stretch. When we use the phrase, we generally aren’t talking about Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday, as the phrase is generally used in a derogatory sense -- a reference to lounge music or what some would call "easy listening." Fortunately, some audiophile labels are turning out new recordings from female singers who defy that pigeonhole.

Of all the singers active today, Cassandra Wilson is among the least likely to be considered easy listening. If there is any royalty among jazz vocalists, Wilson is a senior member of that court. With a unique vocal timbre, husky voice and percussive delivery shaped by her influences -- Abbey Lincoln and Betty Carter -- she isn’t easily confused with any other jazz artist. No one is as uncompromising, so full of edgy passion while at the same time so intelligent in her choice and arrangement of material. Chalk it up to her early years as an adherent of M-Base Jazz, until the late 1980s when she was taken into the Blue Note stable, where she released a number of albums before departing in 2015 for Legacy.

A 2003 Blue Note release, Glamoured is half covers and half Wilson compositions. A small band -- guitar, bass, percussion and in some cases banjo, harmonica and washboard -- accompanies Wilson, who often challenges listeners with more experimentation than they can follow. Not here -- her original compositions are mature and unselfconscious, standing toe to toe with her choice of covers, which are stamped with her unique signature. The resulting performances are edgy but never over the edge, resulting in one of Wilson’s best Blue Note albums. Whether it’s Percy Sledge’s “If Loving You Is Wrong” or Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay,” Wilson’s interpretations avoid the hackneyed result mailed in by most singers with audiophile cred.

This recording was originally released on CD and LP. Mastered at Sterling Sound, the original vinyl was pressed somewhere in the EU (common for LP issues around the turn of the century). It sported regular-weight vinyl and a lightweight jacket, and while it sounded better than the CD, the sound was as light as the packaging. This Tone Poet release, mastered by Kevin Gray and pressed at RTI, is a revelation. The original LP lacked texture, sounding thin and washed out by comparison to the meaty sound of this reissue.

Jennifer Warnes comes from an entirely different direction. Best known for her album of Leonard Cohen covers, Famous Blue Raincoat, Warnes returns after a long sabbatical. She hit her stride as a recording artist in the early 1970s, touring with Leonard Cohen and singing on several of his albums, eventually recording Famous Blue Raincoat in 1987. She worked as an arranger and recorded for motion-picture soundtracks, with her friends Joe Cocker and Randy Newman. Several more albums followed, beautifully recorded and available as reissues from Impex Records. In 2001, she recorded The Well [Impex 6001-45], then she stepped away from the music business to spend more time with her family and follow other creative pursuits. During that time she lost several family members and close friends, including Leonard Cohen and Joe Cocker.

As part of her healing process, she returned to the recording studio. The ten songs included here are a carefully culled selection of introspective poems, from Eddie Vedder (“Just Breathe”) and John Legend (“Once I Was Loved”), along with Ray Bonneville’s bluesy “I Am The Big Easy,” closing with Mark Knopfler’s “Why Worry.” Despite Warnes' Southern California roots, the country twang in her voice, so delicate and vulnerable, lends added depth to the music. Along with The Well, this LP has found a permanent spot in that part of my shelves that contains my Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez and Emmylou Harris records -- music I turn to when I need a break from the testosterone levels of most pop music and want to look inward.

The session was digitally recorded in 2018 for release on CD by bass player and longtime collaborator Roscoe Beck, aided by mix engineer Noah Snyder, and mastered by Bernie Grundman. The Impex vinyl reissue was also mastered by Grundman and pressed at RTI. While not quite the equal in sound to The Well, it has nothing digital-sounding about it. The instruments (string, electric, resonator and lap guitars, violin, percussion, piano and organ in various combinations) all occupy well-defined spaces, and the voices (Warnes’ as well as those of occasional backup singers) are three-dimensional and warm. The album is enclosed in a gorgeous foldout cover, one section holding a booklet of lyrics, photographs and credits.

The third release comes from Vanessa Fernandez, the singer, hip-hop artist and radio presenter from Singapore, better known to the audiophile world for her two prior sets on Groove Note. Label owner Ying Tan’s bicoastal life (Singapore and Los Angeles) has taken him in many directions, from selling LPs through a mailing list before the Internet, to co-founding Classic Records, to founding reissue label Original Recordings Group, to creating Groove Note, his label of original pop, jazz and blues recordings. Fernandez’s first outing, Use Me, included covers from Barry White, Curtis Mayfield, Al Cooper and others and was recorded by Michael C. Ross on 30ips 1/4" tape. Her second release, When The Levee Breaks, a set of Led Zeppelin covers, was recorded on an Ampex 24-track, two-inch deck by Ross. That one got the noses of some Led Zeppelin lovers out of joint, an effect that said more about them than Fernandez, as it was an entirely original and unique take on the music, and it rocked like crazy. Ross recorded this new release on a 24-track, two-inch Ampex deck running at 30ips. There are few recordings you can buy today that equal the sound of Fernandez's Groove Note releases in any parameter you can think of, including deep bass, explosive dynamics, unlimited headroom, expansive soundstaging and spot-on tone color.

This time out, backed by a band of top Los Angeles session players, Fernandez sings eleven covers, with something from Michael Jackson (“Billie Jean”), Amy Winehouse (“Back to Black”), Radiohead (“Creep”) Curtis Mayfield (“Tripping Out”), Daryl Hall (“Every Time You Go Away”) and others, all pop and soul grooves that continue her record of unique interpretations while avoiding the plodding dullness of most female vocalists on audiophile recordings. Watching Claire Denis’s Let The Sunshine In recently, in which Juliette Binoche dances to Etta James's “At Last” (and keeps the album cover on the wall in her home), I was struck by how much of James's energy Vanessa Fernandez brings to her renditions. Nobody is going to mistake the two for each other, but there’s an authenticity that both share. That’s high praise indeed.