1992�s �Natural Affinities� ranges widely in both approach and instrumentation (all but the opening track feature the rhythm team of Lisle Atkinson and Newman Baker with the remaining personnel varying from piece to piece). �Mingus Meditations�, which begins the disc, is a lovely, improvised duo between Lee and Dave Holland using as text extracts from Mingus' autobiography Beneath the Underdog. Holland is at his rich, Mingusian finest here, whether freely extrapolating or digging into blues-drenched walking patterns, while Lee inhabits the territory that suits her best: the line that straddles the free and the earthbound. The only standard appearing here is �I Thought About You�, with Lee�s cousin Paul Broadnax on piano and accompanying vocal (a nice, romantic baritone that comes as a bit of a pleasant shock when first heard and serves as a rather luscious counterpoint to Lee�s ephemeral sound). Long time associate (not to mention husband) Gunter Hampel is brought aboard with Amina Claudine Myers for Hampel's �Journey to Edaneres,� a soothingly loping, modal piece that recalls Lee�s work as part of the Desert Band in Carla Bley�s Escalator Over the Hill, especially when Myers joins in to sing obbligato a la Jack Bruce in the earlier work. The next several pieces feature trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, whose piquant tone, often set alongside that of altoist Mark Whitecage, provides yet another color to compliment Lee. �Peace Chorale� is a somewhat stale and tiresome polemic in dirge form while �Free Space� is a brief, exuberant foray into the area Lee once explored with Hampel�s Galaxy Dream Band. Smith�s �Trilogy� blends Rasta-inspired lyrics with the kind of spare, brooding composition familiar to his fans, both evocative and tentative in a strangely enticing manner. The session takes a final, surprising twist with �Ambrosia Mama/Celebration of a State of Grace,� (lyrics by Ntozake Shange), importing Jerome Harris on acoustic guitar for a lilting, Brazilian-style song that allows Lee to fully indulge her most lyrical side. It�s a very satisfying endpiece.

The duo with Mal Waldron, recorded about two years later, is necessarily a more restrained affair due to the nature of the material and the pianist�s dark, sometimes dour sensibility. The two had been performing as a pair since at least the late 70�s (I recall seeing them around that time at the Soho loft, Environ) and are certainly comfortable with each other but I can�t help but feel that Lee is a little bit hemmed in by the standards format. Her intonation on songs like �You Go to My Head� and �I Could write a Book� is sometimes shaky and she occasionally seems less than totally at ease in this milieu. Still, there are moments of beauty in even the weaker cuts here; Lee�s voice itself is always something to marvel at and Waldron�s unique sense of timing and spareness are an inspired foil. But for this listener, Lee reaches her greatest heights when least fettered. She had her own perfectly calibrated sense of balance between free and the blues and forms that bring with them the impositions of boundaries not of her choosing sound unnecessarily limiting. This may be why the most successful pieces here are Waldron�s own �Straight Ahead� and, especially, his �Fire Waltz� where the two artists� psyches mesh perfectly. The recording achieves additional, sorrowful resonance with the closing �Every Time We Say Goodbye� as one is overtly reminded of the recent passing of these two giants.

Both discs, even with minor misgivings, are decidedly recommended to anyone at all interested in the work of Jeanne Lee, a musician who still, at the time of her death, was one of the most beautiful and underrated singers to have emerged from the new music of the 60s.