Emi
Makabe (voice, shamisen, flute); Thomas Morgan (double bass, backing vocals);
Vitor Gonçalves (piano, accordion, Wurlitzer electric piano); Kenny Wollesen
(drums, percussion, vibraphone, electronics) + Meshell Ndegeocello (MC on tks 2
& 9); Jason Moran (piano on tk 2); Bill Frisell (acoustic guitar on tk 1)
How can something be a
surprise if you don’t know what to expect in the first place? In any case, this
album comes as a surprise. Full of depth, imagination and emotion, it wanders
through jazz and several other types of music and the shamisen throws an anchor
back into Makabe’s Japanese roots. Most of all, though, it’s just a lovely
sound with her voice dominating proceedings whether in Japanese, English or wordless
vocalese with superbly sympathetic support from Gonçalves’ piano.
Of course, to confound
that observation from the very start the opening melancholic ballad, The Birthday Song, has Makabe’s mellow,
Linda Ronstadt-ish vocals surrounded by rolling bass and finely picked guitar
(from Bill Frisell, no less). It’s a song of both loss and memory of her father
who died during the Covid outbreak summed up in the line, “I'll sing a song with a face half smiling.”
