On her fifth Concord Records release, LIVE, Nnenna Freelon brings all of her alluring talents to bear. The result is a beguiling and intimate achievement. Recorded at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, on February 21 and 22, 2003, Live marks a decade-long recording career for Freelon, as well as 20-years on the road.

It has certainly been a heady decade for her. In addition to five GRAMMY® nominations while on the Concord label, Freelon also made her feature film debut in the Mel Gibson hit, What Women Want, and sang a remake of Sinatra's classic, "Fly Me To The Moon" for The Visit, starring Billy Dee Williams. She is a winner of both the Billie Holiday Award from the prestigious Academie du Jazz and the Eubie Blake Award, and has twice been nominated for the "Lady of Soul" Soul Train Award. What's more, Freelon has performed and toured with a veritable who's who in jazz, from Ray Charles and Ellis Marsalis to Al Jarreau and George Benson, among many others.

In Live is Freelon's first live recording and her second as producer-she handpicked the tune list, which includes previously unrecorded tracks. Milton Nascimento's "Nothing Will Be As It Was," a tune that honors her emotional connection with her fans. "People may have traveled far to see me, or stood in line waiting for tickets, but everything else falls away once the music starts. It's just me and the audience." In preparing for one show, Freelon and her band were just fooling around with "Body and Soul" during a sound check one night. Their reggae treatment epitomizes why she enjoys playing with this band so much. "If I Only Had a Brain" is, as expected, humorous and lighthearted, yet saved from being overly cute by Freelon's imaginative blues feel. The old chestnut "Button Up Your Overcoat," fast becoming one of her signature tunes, is infused with jazzy hip-hop vigor, and "If I Only Had You" traverses from earnest bravado to sultry despair in her innovative treatment.

Freelon has included many of the songs that have endeared her to fans. She gives "All or Nothing At All" a sassy, spunky feel, and, as is always true on Freelon recordings, she proclaims her enduring affection for the Stevie Wonder songbook. Freelon delivers "My Cherie Amour" with original phrasing and flowing clarity, and "Tears of a Clown," a tune Wonder composed with Smokey Robinson, is imbued with tender simplicity. "Button Up Your Overcoat" which earned Freelon an arranging GRAMMY® nomination delivers a heightened exuberance live.

This CD includes an enhanced view of Freelon performing live in Montreux for her record company's 30th Anniversary singing a Billie Holiday inspired Alec Wilder tune, "The Lady Sings The Blues."