DreamLand

4 1/2 STARS Is it damning with faint praise to say that this is grown-up jazz? Too much female jazz singing seems to slide from Betty Boop pyrotechnics straight into "Gloomy Sunday" croaking with out much happening in between.

The lovely thing about Libby York is that she seems like an adult artist without letting responsibilities weigh down joyousness and pleasure in the song. York knows that her responsibility is to the song, and on material as potentially arch as "Rhode Island Is Famous For You" or the trickier "This Happy Madness" she delivers the lines with an almost discursive straightforwardness that enhances rather than deadening the impact.

She's picked a remarkably good crew for this latest sail out into the bay. Randy Napoleon, who helps with production, has a sophisticated touch but never drifts into that "lounge" style that overtakes pianists charged with accompanying cool singers, and York is in the line of June Christy and Chris Connor.

Whitaker, who has a lot to do on the drummer-less tracks, is a model of tasteful restraint, while Hall, when he comes in on "Throw It Away," generates maximum impact by not being there from the start.

York's voice is in splendid shape, but it's the vigor and judgement of her storytelling that makes this one rather special. She's worked relatively quiet passage up till now, but unlike those singers who, to vary the image, go up like a rocket and come down like the stick, she's pacing herself beautifully.