David, I can not tell you how gratified I am to read that you were a fan of Ms. Carroll.
I literally grew up with Barbara. She was a contemporary of my father, also a jazz pianist, and a close family friend. Needless to say our record collection had many of her lps.
She had an apartment in mid-town Manhattan (iirc) and one day my Dad and I visited her. She introduced me to one Milton Supman AKA Soupy Sales!!!
I remember hearing Barbara play a few times while having cocktails at the Carlyle Hotel before a show in the Cafe Carlyle. She was great and a lot of fun.
Thanks so much for posting about this. I was not aware of Barbara Carroll until (shame how that happens some times) , but I'm with you David on this being the bee's knees when it comes to non-scary jazz - I love this kind of thing more and more as the years go by.
Here's one of the albums on the set David linked to, which I'm definitely picking up.