Pamela Means (Wirl Records)

On this eight-track disc comprised mostly of

jazz standards, the Boston-based singer-songwriter

and out dyke hottie veers off in a different --

though not unfamiliar to her direction.

Though many have come to know and love her

as one of the fiercest guitar players and politically

rooted folk singers in the music industry today, her roots

are in jazz; she trained classically at the Wisconsin Conservatory

of Music before heading to Boston to make her mark on the folk

scene there. With her skillful delivery of snappy lounge classics

like "All of Me", "Fly Me to the Moon" and "Sunny Side of the

Street," interspersed with intense renderings of sparse vocal

ballads like "My Funny Valentine" and "I Got It Bad," Means

takes her rightful place among

contemporary superstar jazz

vocalists such as Cassandra

Wilson and Norah Jones. My

personal favorite is her breathy

take on Nina Simone's "Four

Women," though the jazzified

version of her funky original

"My Love" comes in a close second.