There's really no question of what jazz I'd be seeing at the start of the new year in 1992 - Betty Carter, appearing at Fat Tuesday's. Carter released her first record in 1958, and while her sound certainly grew and changed over time, it's remarkable how mature her style was - both in interpreting melodies and soloing - from the start of her recording career. I've always enjoyed Carter's melody embellishments much more than Sarah Vaughan's - Carter's mission is to communicate something about the song to her audience, while Vaughan's seems to be to simply communicate her own singing - and her solos more than those of the default "jazz" vocal soloist, Ella Fitzgerald.
By 1992, Carter had become a living legend, a bandleader (like Art Blakey) whose high standards and impeccable taste ushered a generation of tasteful and swinging musicians onto the scene as her sidemen. My guess is that the song referred to in the New Yorker listing is "The Good Life," which Carter recorded in her 1963 record 'Round Midnight and Tony Bennett recorded the same year for I Wanna Be Around... Here's Betty singing an absolutely killer version of "The Good Life" in 1989, the year after she re-recorded it for her record Look What I Got, which won a Grammy:
From The New Yorker, January 6th, 1992:
