By Jerry Pearce

It was the year 2007, and my local sanctuary, Borders Books, was closing forever. Not only was the store closing, the entire adjoining mall was being torn down, and accordingly, the superstore was holding the precedent of an out of business sale. Walking through the gap-a-plenty music section, which looked much like a bomb hit it, I found myself, predictably, in front of the section with the “jazz/standards” heading, which was mainly untouched. With signs emblazoned on the walls and pillars around me with phrases like “75% off!” and “all stock must sell,” I felt much like a kid in a candy store with a pocket full of quarters.

Thumbing down the shelf through the many titles, I came upon a Dean Martin record of which I had never seen before entitled “Forever Cool”. A neat black and white picture of Dean clad in a v-neck sweater with open collar adorned the cover, set in some sharp dark cube art. Thinking the album to be the typical compilation, I flipped over the title and became quite surprised, seeing that each of the more then dozen odd titles each featuring a duet partner with the likes of Kevin Spacey, Joss Stone, Robbie Williams, as well as instrumentalists Chris Botti and Dave Koz. I knew this had to be some sort of special release considering Dean Martin had quit recording in studio long before some of these celebrities had established careers. For the bargain price of seven bucks, I drove home with the disc.