Nowadays singers in Viet Nam cut records to keep their name in the game more than to invest in the music. Duc Tuan is the exception. By hiring Duc Tri, one of today’s hottest and priciest producers, Tuan delivered what he promised: a Pham Duy songbook with first-class orchestration. Even though Tri has been known for his laziness, Tuan managed to pull some of the most creative works out of him. “Tinh Cam,” “Tinh Hoai Huong” and “Tinh Ca” find the perfect blend between Tuan’s soulful falsetto and Tri’s illustrious arrangements, but more impressive is the consistency of the album as a whole.

Ella’s glossy and Louis’ grainy vocals shouldn’t be compatible, yet they made one of the finest duets of the century. With an album called The Best of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, all that it needed to say is: “Let’s [Swing] the Whole Thing Off.”

T.I. is a braggadocio but he could back his swag up with fluid flows and lyrical skills. From the self-boosting “King Back” to the shit-spitting “I’m Talking to You,” King, his most successful album to date, proves T.I. at the top of his game. Clocking in around 75 minutes, the album could use some trimming, but the fine productions, especially the hypnotic horn samples and energetic beat from Just Blaze’s cuts, help pulling through. In fact, several revisits to King are necessary.

One is a jazz piano prodigy. One is a bluegrass banjo virtuoso. Together Chick Corea and Bela Fleck crafted The Enchantment, a master of art. The secret behind the success is the way the two musicians communicate through sounds. Cue into the end of “Joban Dna Nopia” (at 5:50 to be exact) for instance, you will hear how Corea makes his keyboard sounds like the banjo by playing at the high keys to perform in unison with Fleck, and then vice versa. Whether exchanging melodies, trading counterpoints, accompanying one another, or charging tempos against each other, the harmonization between the two is an unbreakable spell of fusion.

With “Mot Minh,” Huong Giang closed out Paris By Night 88: Duong Ve Que Huong, Thuy Nga’s third musical tribute to Lam Phuong. The song is a perfect ending piece for a man whose songs, such as “Tinh Bo Vo,” “Phut Cuoi,” and “Duong Ve Viet Nam” (my personal favorite), captured millions of Vietnamese souls, yet whose life is still lonesome after two major wrecked relationships. The first one caused him to hide out in Paris, but the romantic city inspired him to pen his painful experiences like “Say” and “Lam.” While in Paris, he met his second lover who motivated him to write tuneful ballads like “Bai Tango Cho Em” and “Mua Thu Yeu Duong.” He moved back to the States, however, after the relationship ended and then caught a stroke a few years later. Since the incident, which paralyzed him, he could no longer able to pick up the guitar. Even if he cannot compose any new songs, what he has giving us are way more than what we could ask for, particularly listening to his songs again on PBN 88. It’s been a while since I was able to sit through and enjoy the entire Thuy Nga’s double DVDs without falling asleep or having to hit the fast-forward button, especially the live performances.

Who would have expected that Ha Tran, an artist with attitude and passion, winds up being a moneymaking shtick for Thuy Nga Production? Her new album, Tinh Ca Qua The Ky, is a typical, Thuy Nga-stamped mediocre: old songs dressed up in new lifeless arrangements. It takes eleven cuts into the album to finds something she would record on her own.

With her lovely voice and versatile range, she only needs a simple guitar-picking to refresh a ballad, which I was hoping for in the cover of “Dung Xa Em Dem Nay.” Instead the flashy, poppy production takes the human spirit right out of Duc Huy’s signature piece. The arrangement gets sloppier on the translated “Nhung Con Duong Tinh Yeu.” The shrieking trumpet creeps up out of nowhere. “Bésame Mucho” sneaks up on the break. Her wordless singing sounds as if she’s exorcising the demons. (“This house is clear.”)

It is understandable that Tinh Ca Qua The Ky brings her back to earth after having gone way too far into space with Communication ’06, but why a century? She must be really confused.

The Jiggaton mixtape, mash-ups of Jay-Z’s hits and reggae grooves, has some nice cuts for the club including “Mi Amor” and “99 Problems.” The problem isn’t the bitch but the beat, which recycles throughout the album. Unless you have no problem grinding to the same rhythm, the joint gets boring pretty fast.

The four-disc compilation of Hot Jazz on Blue Note is exceptional in song choices and meticulous in the liner notes. Dan Morgenstern deserves his credits for both. In particular, his brief commentary on each track is a wonderful guide for novice listeners. Even if you’re not a jazz freak, you better crank up your AC because the fervent blues, stomping swing and sensational sound of New Orleans get pretty hot and zesty. Sidney Bechet’s “Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives to Me” alone is spicy enough to make you sweat.

After spinning eighteen tracks on T.I. vs. T.I.P., the only thang that appeals to me is T.I.’s southern intonation. He also has a marvelous flow, but he rhymes too soft. At times, the big, booming beats dominate his voice. Lyrically, he is more of a flow virtuoso than a storyteller. Without personality, the album fails to hold listeners’ attention even though he got big help from other rappers including Jay-Z, Young Jeezy, Eminem, and Busta Rhymes.

Billie Holiday’s Lady in Satin has to be one of the toughest albums to appreciate. At the time she made these recordings (a year and a half before she left us), not only her health had suffered badly, but her voice had also deteriorated immensely. Both her chops and her vocals were gone with all the hard drugs she abused. All she had left was a harshing, tiring, and excruciating tone that was almost unlistenable, yet it was her personal phrasing that made the album deserved its classic stature. Right from the opening “I am a Fool to Want You,” we could tell that she was no longer interested in singing the tune. She stripped the melody down to its core of despair and expressed the lyrics like she was narrating her own unrequited love against the dead-slow orchestration arranged by Claus Ogerman and conducted by Ray Ellis. In the reissued version, which included alternative takes, the most unforgettable recording was the naked rendition of “The End of a Love Affair.” Her interpretation of the lyrics—”So I smoke a little too much, and I joke a little too much / And the tunes I request are not always the best / But the ones where the trumpets blare”—are as rough, rugged and raw as they get. She not only knew how a song should be articulated, but also knew how to breathe life into it.