This album is a collection of standards and one original song by Mark Murphy performed with a jazz sextet.
Musiker was known for accompanying singers such as Chris Connor, Susannah McCorkle, Carol Sloane and Tony Bennett.
The album opens with a medley of three song's from Leonard Bernstein's On the Town, set in New York City.
"[1][2] "Dearly Beloved" is a Johnny Mercer and Jerome Kern Oscar nominated song from the 1942 movie musical You Were Never Lovelier, where it was introduced by Fred Astaire.
[1][3] It lost the Academy Award for Best Original Song to Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" from Holiday Inn.
But when I started going there 'Then I'll Be Tired of You' was one of the cult hits of a guy named Nicky DeFrancis, who sang and played piano at this particular bar.
Referring to "Serenade In Blue" by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon, Murphy said, "it becomes such a rhythmic romp that when you get to the bridge, when does it end?
[6] In the liner notes, Murphy dedicated the recording to a friend from England, "for whom the song 'has deep personal meaning.
[1] "I Ain't Gonna Let You Break My Heart" by David Lasley was a song Murphy heard "on a jukebox in a bar near his home in the Poconos".
I get the feeling that maybe Janis Joplin stumbled across Frances somewhere in a former life or something, and heard that extra-ballsy type singing"[1] "I Wonder What Became of Me" by Harold Arlen and Jonny Mercer was dropped from their musical St. Louis Woman.
There are a couple of Noel Coward songs, I suppose they're not really in my style, but they bring tears to my eyes every time I hear them".
[1] Richard Cook and Brian Martin assign 4 qualified stars to Links in The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings.
[8][9] Scott Yanow includes Links in his list of Murphy's "other worthy recordings of the past 20 years" in his book The Jazz Singers: The Ultimate Guide.