A pleasant vignette from a singer not entirely unknown in the north east. In fact not at all unknown in the north east if you were a regular at the old Jazz Café jam sessions, or at the Globe when, strangely, she shared the bill with the Tenement Jazz Band, or if you were at the Sage (now the Glasshouse) when she was part of the faculty of that cultural centre's musical education programme.
Now firmly established in Manchester this is her second album to be featured here after her 2021 release Friends With Monsters. That one was by her quintet and featured mainly original material. This time it's pared down to just piano accompaniment and some good old good ones.
This is where the challenge begins. When you already have definitive versions by Billie, Ella and other iconic songbirds do you want yet another?
Maybe yes, maybe no, maybe perhaps - nothing like being decisive!
By and large the answer is yes. Nishla brings her own take on the songs which is just enough to allow them to stand on their own feet.
Someday my Prince Will Come is slow and dreamy. The surprise, off-key, note at the end is perfectly in context wistfully suggesting her prince has not yet arrived.
Jim, somehow or other I never got around to hearing Billie's version. The only other time I've heard it was in some long forgotten movie sung by some long forgotten singer so Nishla wins hands down on this one!
Another plus factor in Nishla's favour is the support, often quite musically humourous from Tom Harris on piano. He has an impressive solo feature on Jitterbug Waltz.
Tea For Two has my favourite verse of all the GASbook standards and this version is no exception. Interestingly, Nishla changes the lyric of the chorus so that it's the man who bakes the sugar cake that she takes for all the boys to see - what is the world coming too!? Harris goes into cha-cha mode during his solo.
Make Someone Happy - a nice easy swing that does what the song title requests.
Don't Explain is sung with feeling and comes closer to Lady Day than any of them without losing Nishla's own identity.
Smile sees the album home. Check it out - release date is Feb. 24 and there's an album launch party at NQ Jazz, Manchester on that same day. The album, btw, is one of those pesky digital download things. Lance
1 comment :
Editor-in-Chief LL makes reference to Nishla's appearance at a jam session at the old Jazz Cafe in Newcastle. In his review of the jam session in question (7 August 2018) he wrote about Nishla singing Don't Explain. '...the silenced room said it all'. It did just that, one of the great moments in the history of Jazz Caff/Black Swan jam sessions.
Post a Comment