Personnel: Regina Belle (vocals); Ray Fuller (guitar); Everette Harp (tenor saxophone); Oscar Brashear (flugelhorn); George Duke (keyboards); Christian McBride, Alex Al (bass instrument); Gordon Campbell (drums); Lenny Castro (percussion); Lori Perry, Darlene Perry, Sharon Perry (background vocals).

Recording information: Le Gonks West, Los Angeles, CA.

New Jersey R&B singer Regina Belle's 2004 record, LAZY AFTERNOON, is produced by pianist George Duke, and though it's loaded with jazz standards and features her wonderfully breathy vocal style, it's not a straightforward jazz record. Also incorporating elements of pop, torch singing, and lounge music, this outing is filtered through the singer's soul sensibilities.

The selection roams through composers of diverse backgrounds, with Belle's voice sliding comfortably into any style presented here. Belle finds a new angle to one of the most enduring of standards, "Fly Me to the Moon," opening with a dreamy, gin-soaked manner before shifting into a wonderfully unusual, modern R&B-flecked chorus. She tips her hat brilliantly to Brazilian master Antonio Carlos Jobim on a deft cover of his "Corcovado," before unveiling her own (co-written with Duke) Latin-tinged composition, the sly "There's a Love." A syncopated, Stax-like take on "Try a Little Tenderness" closes LAZY AFTERNOON, a breezy and original album.