Ms Whitmore is to be applauded for both her choice of material and accompaniment. She has something of a track record when it comes to truffling out A-list material, as I recall from a previous album, Isn’t It Romantic, which I reviewed in these pages a little over a year ago.
This time around she has not only given her album the same title as one of Frank Sinatra’s best albums on Capitol but she includes half the actual album (six tracks) as well as another three titles associated with Sinatra, making a total of nine Sinatra-type tracks. It’s a homage, as Whitmore no more attempts Sinatra’s delivery than the conductor and leader of the 16-piece orchestra – augmented by 26 strings – attempts Billy May’s charts, let alone their interpretation by the West Coast’s finest session musicians.
Solos are sparse, featuring on just six of the tracks, but effective. Josh Nelson gets the lion’s share, but there are spots too for Kyle Palmer (flh), Hendrik Muerkens (hca), Bob Sheppard (as), Jacob Scesney (ts) and Andy Martin (tb).
With the bizarre exception of Georgia On My Mind, in which she contrives to sound like the love-child of Ray Charles and Etta James, Whitmore handles the vocal chores pleasantly enough, though honesty compels me to say that should she find herself mano a mano with the really heavy hitters – Jo Stafford, June Christy, Margaret Whiting – she would finish up out of the money.
However, all the heavy hitters are playing Birdland, Cloud Nine Chapter, and the finer younger vocalists, like Lauren Bush, are slowly but surely abandoning the real A-list material in favour of flavour-of-the-month dross, leaving the field of quality cliffing to Ms Whitmore. Long may she continue to harvest it.
Discography
It’s Nice To Go Travelling; Come Fly With Me; On An Evening In Roma; A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square; There’s A Small Hotel; I Thought About You; Moonlight In Vermont; April In Paris; Georgia On My Mind; Autumn In New York; Beyond The Sea; Around The World. (40.29)
Whitmore (v); Chris Walden (cond/arr); Rob Schaer, Kye Palmer (t, flh); Andy Martin, Ramsey Hampton (tb); Bob Sheppard (as, f); Jacob Scesney (ts, af) Greg Huckins (bar, bcl); Josh Nelson (p); David Delhomme (org); Andrew Synowiec, George Doering (g); Edwin Livingston (b); Jamey Tate (d); Pete Korpela (pc); Nick Ariondo (acc); Hendrik Muerkens (hca). East West Studios, Hollywood, 26-27 June 2023.
Arden House Records JBW 202301
