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Chanté Moore VibeZ

Twenty tracks from a singer with a four-octave range who spent much of her career making duet records. Chanté Moore is worth hearing alone as well.

Chanté Moore

Chanté Moore is from San Francisco, raised in a religious household — her father was a minister — and emerged in 1992 with Precious. Her voice is the immediate distinguishing feature: a light, extremely agile soprano with a genuine whistle register, deployed with more taste than most singers with that equipment manage.

A substantial part of her recorded output is duet work, particularly with Kenny Lattimore, to whom she was married from 2002 to 2011. Their two joint albums are among the best grown-folks R&B records of the 2000s, and the partnership defined a decade of her career.

She has also worked extensively in television and remains a formidable live performer.

What to listen for

"Love's Taken Over" is the debut single and the one that announced the voice. "Chante's Got A Man" is the biggest hit and the most fun thing here.

The Kenny Lattimore duets are the core. "Loveable (From Your Head To Your Toes)" and "Things That Lovers Do" — the latter a James Poyser production — are the essentials, and "With You I'm Born Again" takes on the Billy Preston and Syreeta record.

"Guess Who I Saw Today" is the one to sit with. It is a jazz standard about a wife discovering her husband's affair, told entirely through small talk, and it requires an interpreter rather than a singer. Moore handles it beautifully.

"Free / Sail On" pairs the Deniece Williams and Commodores songs, and "Old School Lovin'" is the affectionate throwback.

The all-star tracks are historical documents: "The Windows Of The World" with Dionne Warwick, Angie Stone, Deborah Cox and Da Brat, and the "Lady Marmalade" assembly with Kelly Price and Shanice — both from the era when television specials and charity records put every R&B singer in America on one track.

"Wey U" and "Mood" are the later, jazzier material.

Go deeper

Precious (1992) is the debut, and Things That Lovers Do (2003) with Kenny Lattimore is the duet album.

Kenny Lattimore's own catalogue is excellent and similarly under-discussed — his self-titled debut contains "For You," one of the great wedding songs.

For the soprano tradition in R&B: Minnie Riperton is the ancestor, Deniece Williams the direct model, and Mariah Carey the contemporary who took the whistle register mainstream.

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