Despite her substance dependence acquired in adolescence, and her skin color (Caucasian), Anita Belle Colton, born in Chicago in 1919, successfully imposed her innate sense of rhythm on an essentially African-American jazz scene starting in 1939. Beginning with big bands, then navigating the be-bop turn in the 1950s, she sings standards by Gershwin or Cole Porter on this first album for Verve under the guidance of producer Norman Granz.