I reviewed Lisa Rich's 1983 album, Listen Here, last year and I was impressed. I'm impressed with this, her latest, too.
No Moon at All opens up this delightful album. Just voice and bass, not an easy combination but when it works, and it works here, the end product is worth it for both performers and listeners alike.
Bill Evans' Two Lonely People brings a similar empathy between voice and piano with the bass gently adding a third line - or it may be Copland's left hand. It's a sad song but a beautiful one with Rich capturing the sad sentiments.
There's a lot of background to Beginner/How Can we Sing About Freedom?. Beginner was composed by Rich's late friend and mentor Jay Clayton who, sadly, passed away in December 2023. Clayton, Rich admits, was the one who got her back into singing. Health issues, had made her unable to perform. However, it was during a time of national protest that brought about How Can we Sing About Freedom?. Unable to march with the crowds, she wrote a poem and put it to a minor blues - her way of speaking through music to a troubled world. Solos from piano and bass as well as some vocal scatting..
Estate is sung entirely in Italian. As I belong to the non parlo Italiano brand of tourist I don't know what it's about although the plaintive melody suggests it isn't a party song.
Take Five is tricky enough to begin with, having to sing it in 5/4 time demands vocal dexterity of the first order - that demand is met.
Quiet Nights drew this comment from composer Denny Zeitlin: "Wow, you are a helluva singer."
Kitty Margalis added lyrics to Wayne Shorter's Footprints, renaming it Ancient Footprints. Ballou added some trumpet lines. Being long familiar with Shorter's original, adding words didn't do it for me.
Ballou stays on board for Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke's classic Like Someone in Love. Rich interprets the lyrics just like someone in love, Ballou is more at home here and Gress shines with a meaningful bass solo - an accolade rarely applied to our bull-fiddlers!
Muted trumpet slots in nicely with Rich's vocal on Never Let me go.
More muted trumpet on Monk's Well You Needn't retitled It's Over Now. Rich indulges in some quirky scatting.
It's good to have her recording again and may her voice be heard in all the right places by all the right people. Lance
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