Dorothy Ashby

• LIMITED CLEAR VINYL
This album is a wonderful illustration of what Leonard Feather, eminent music critic and champion of the female's rights in jazz, has been yelling about for years. It reiterates the lesson that has taught us not to say: "She plays good for a girl."

For those of you who still harbor some prejudice against the fair sex's ability to play convincing jazz, this might be a good time to shed this medieval attitude. At the same time, the listener who is leery of the harp as a jazz instrument, previously regarding its music as a necessary interlude in a Marx Brothers movie, is also in for a few surprises. -Ira Gitler