What a Diff’rence a Day Makes!

1959  ·  Album

Dinah Washington in 1959, slowing the evening down until a small room feels like the only one in the city.

What a Diff’rence a Day Makes! is a Dinah Washington album from 1959, arranged by Belford Hendricks, and it opens onto a quieter room than the one most people picture when they hear her name. The title song is here, and it carries the mood of the whole record in one idea, that a single day can change everything about a life. She sings it as though she has only just found out. That is the secret of the album.

Hendricks keeps the arrangements soft and generous, a cushion under the voice rather than a frame around it, and Washington does the rest with phrasing that is exact without ever sounding careful. Every word lands. Every pause has a reason. The effect is intimate in the oldest sense, a singer of real power choosing, for the length of a record, to sing to the one person listening closest. Put it on after dinner with the lamps low and a glass of rye within reach, and ask someone to dance, even if the room is small. This is a record made for exactly that.

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VERDICT  ·  A 1959 ballad record of rare warmth, arranged by Belford Hendricks; play it low after dinner and keep the floor clear for two.

POUR  ·  A glass of rye.

Pairs with: The Slow Dance Record

The same late, low-lit shelf holds Sinatra’s In the Wee Small Hours and Melody Gardot’s My One and Only Thrill. Play them on the nights this one has already had its turn.