Album review: Scott Dunn, Claire Martin & The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - I Watch You Sleep

Claire Martin (vocals); Scott Dunn (conductor, arranger, piano on 2 tks); Ryan Quigley (flugel); Rob Barron (piano); Jeremy Brown (bass); Matt Skelton (drums); The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. 

Fourteen years ago, to the day bar one (Feb. 17), I was thrilled and delighted to witness a wonderful performance by Claire Martin and Sir Richard Rodney Bennett at, as it was then,  The Sage, now Sage Gateshead and soon to be something else!

It was a duo performance that I rate alongside, amongst others, the quartet concert by Ella and Don Abney at Newcastle's City Hall and Mel Tormé and George Shearing's gig at the Royal Festival Hall  even though that latter concert also had a bass player in tow. 

Claire and Sir Richard didn't need a bassist - the sparks that flew between them left no spaces, an intruder would have been burned.

I purchased a CD after the concert and when Sir Richard Rodney Bennett died in 2012 it provided a lasting memory of that special evening.

Now there is another memory of the great man's music and the definitive performer of his music in the form of Claire Martin.

This one goes to the opposite extreme of that magical moment with a subdued Ryan Quigley blowing flugel, an ace trio and, for good measure, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted and arranged by Scott Dunn who also chips in on piano for a couple of numbers.

Martin, husky and sensuous, gets well and truly into the material. RRB's originals were tailor-made for her and the standards come across as if they'd been written by him with Claire's interpretations turning old chestnuts such as It's Only a Paper Moon into something you're hearing for the first time. 

The standards include works by Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Kurt Weill, Ira Gershwin, Johnny Mandel, Johnny Mercer and Yip Harburg. Sir Richard Rodney Bennett's compositions lose nothing by being alongside such exalted company.

The album I Watch You Sleep is scheduled for release in the various formats by Stunt Records on March 24. However, I couldn't hold back my enthusiasm until then so maybe I'll repost this again next month! Lance

I Watch You Sleep; Autumn in New York; It's Only a Paper Moon; For Every Man There's a Woman/It Was Written in the Stars*; Round About; I'll Always Leave the Door a Little Open; I Wish I'd Met You; Don't Play Games With Love; Goodbye For Now; Early to Bed; I Never Went Away; Let's go Away and Live in the Country; Not Exactly Paris; My Ship; I Wonder What Became of me; It Was Written in the Stars.

*For Every Man There's a Woman/It Was Written in the Stars are ingeniously combined and sung as one number. They were originally written by Harold Arlen for the 1948 film Casbah and sung in the movie by Tony Martin (no relation to Claire).