Rachel Sutton (vocals);
Roland Perrin (piano); Michael Curtis Ruiz (bass); Paul Robinson (drums);
Stuart Brooks (trumpet on Brother Can
You Spare A Dime)
I'll be keeping
this CD and playing it often, a high compliment from a reviewer. Why? Because
of the high quality lyrics of these songs, mostly original, especially A
Million Conversations and The Space, both very moving songs about mothers,
which had me close to tears.
The former song is about missing your mother
who has died, thus: 'a million conversations since you left this world, and
every single one upon my own'. And this song has a sort of clinch at the end:
'I know I see your face when I look at mine'. The Space concerns the
words of an adopted child who is imagining what sort of life the birth mother
had, and wishing that they had met. These two songs are contemporary rather
than jazz style, with very sensitive accompaniment, especially from piano.
The rest of the
songs are also well worth the listening. When Love Was New reflects
sadly about a past love affair; Pick Myself Up by contrast is all about
recovering, a fast lively jazzy song with a steady 4/4 piano backing and ascending
and descending scales and a romping piano/bass duet; Kiss My Baby Goodbye is
a Latin number with a rhythm I couldn't quite name (dum diddle diddle dum dum
dum, people who know about Latin rhythms will recognise this I hope).
The two non-
originals are Brother Can You Spare A
Dime? (a rather dramatic version which swings, with a skilled trumpet
solo); and Evil Gal Blues, which tells of a woman enjoying herself
mightily, a jazz blues with a bluesy piano solo, ending with a satisfied laugh
from our singer. The song about adoption ends the CD reflectively.
Rachel Sutton hails
from Kent and grew up listening to jazz and the popular music of such as Stevie
Wonder and Joni Mitchell. She trained as an actor and has performed leading
roles in Shakespeare. She is now a singer full-time and she has sung at the
Edinburgh and New York Fringe festivals, as well as at top London jazz clubs
and jazz venues in the UK and abroad.
The
instrumentalists are all well experienced and play with other bands and I especially
noticed that Perrin, who leads instrumentally on this CD, has also played with
Brotherhood Of Breath, who were mentioned in the recent BBC series about Black
Music In Europe.
Ann Alex
2 comments :
Yes Ann, I thought you'd like this one. However, what impressed me most was the rich fullness of Rachel Sutton's voice which I thought was deserved of special mention (and praise). Just saying ...
Yes Lance, I agree about the voice but I was so keen on the songwriting that I forgot to mention it, Ann
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