Helena Debono & Charlie Bates: A Thousand Nights (Independent BDO1)
Helena Debono is a classically trained vocalist who worked with NYJO in 2019 and 2020. She is a well-rounded musician equally at home in the jazz, pop and soul fields as she demonstrates throughout this impressive recording. Her intimate approach to a lyric calls the great Nancy Wilson to mind. Her collaborator here, Charlie Bates, is a multi-award winning composer and arranger who was the Eddie Harvey Arranger Of The Year in 2021. He followed that by winning an Ivor Novello award.
The hard-swinging I Could Have Danced All Night is a real flag-waver which Ms Debono handles with aplomb. It also features Simon Marsh and Tom Smith on altos standing toe-to-toe for a chorus of exciting exchanges displaying almost Eric Marienthal-like intensity. My Ideal was introduced by Maurice Chevalier in 1930 but Helena brings it right up to date helped by Luke Vice-Coles’ lyrical trumpet.
She takes I Wish You Love at a cute, foot-tapping tempo, closing with a delicate rallentando. The cool-school favourite Lullaby Of Birdland is dressed up in new clothes as a funky, down-home swinger. It has Ellington-like ensemble passage with trumpeter James Davison displaying his mastery of the plunger along the way.
The Old Country, which was memorably recorded by Nancy Wilson with Cannonball Adderley in 1961, becomes a lyrical outing for Michael Gorodi’s trumpet. The closing chorus finds the singer humming wordlessly with the ensemble just like Jackie Cain used to do with Charlie Ventura. Nearness Of You is a highlight. With just strings for company Ms Debono’s delicate vibrato adds a special tenderness to Hoagy Carmichael’s classic. She deals with the key-change in the final eight bars with ease.
With these young performers, jazz is really in good hands and this release can be warmly recommended. See this Neon Jazz interview for more insight into this dynamic duo and this studio video of the title track, a Debono-Bates original.
Jon De Lucia: The Brubeck Octet Project (Musaeum Clausum Recordings MC003)
Dave Brubeck formed his octet in 1946 at a time when he was studying with Darius Milhaud at California’s Mills College. There was speculation that he had been influenced by the 1948 Miles Davis Birth Of The Cool nonet because the line-up and ensemble voicings were somewhat similar. He claimed not to have heard Miles’ group until after his octet had become established and chronologically he was quite correct. The octet was essentially a rehearsal band but around 1949 it performed on several Sunday afternoons at San Francisco’s Blackhawk.
A keen student of overlooked material, Jon De Lucia has recreated 12 of Brubeck’s 18 octet arrangements. How High The Moon and The Way You Look Tonight were the only octet charts that Brubeck later adapted for his famous quartet. Moon is not included here which is a pity because the final part of the chart became a charming contrafact worthy of Johann Sebastian.
Stravinsky was so impressed with Fugue On Bop Themes that he used it as an example of flawless counterpoint when teaching at UCLA
Dave’s tricky reconstruction of The Way is given an impressive reading by De Lucia’s ensemble. Dave Van Kriedt did a large part of the original writing and his Fugue On Bop Themes was one of the Brubeck octet’s more ambitious charts. When originally recorded in 1950 it was through-composed but De Lucia has opened it up for his alto to solo over an ostinato. Despite the title it is not based on any particular jazz theme. Igor Stravinsky, no less, was so impressed with its construction that he used it as an example of flawless counterpoint when teaching at UCLA in 1951.
The Tristano-like IPCA, based on Indiana, inspires some extrovert choruses from pianist Glenn Zaleski, trumpeter Brandon Lee and guest multi-instrumentalist Scott Robinson, here limited to just his tenor.
Natalie Jacob: Sooner Or Later (nataliejacob.com)
Natalie Jacobs’ long-awaited debut album confirms the reputation she has acquired on the Los Angeles jazz scene as a sensitive interpreter of the classic songbook repertoire.
Her stellar rhythm section, who have worked with a veritable who’s-who of celebrated vocalists provides sympathetic support throughout: pianist Tamir Hendelman (Barbra Streisand), guitarist Anthony Wilson (Diana Krall), bassist Carlitos Del Puerto (Stevie Wonder), drummer Clayton Cameron (Tony Bennett) and percussionist Kevin Winard (Rosemary Clooney) all contribute to the success of this release. Trumpeter Scotty Barnhart, who has been the director of the Count Basie Orchestra since 2013, guests on a few titles to add a little Clark Terry-like magic.
Send In The Clowns was not Sondheim’s only contribution to popular music
Ms Jacobs’ crystal-clear delivery and sultry timbre are well suited to the superior material she has selected. As a former lead singer with Bluenova, who specialised in Latin jazz, she is perfectly at home on Jobim’s tricky Wave, which has a range of an octave and a fifth. Corcovado and No More Blues further reveal how comfortable she is with the bossa-nova idiom. I’ve Got You Under My Skin is taken a little slower than usual but works really well. The introspective Smile is performed rubato with just the piano for company.
Stephen Sondheim’s Sooner Or Later is the slinkiest of torch-songs and is a perfect vehicle for her. It was memorably introduced by a vampish Madonna in Warren Beatty’s 1990 film Dick Tracy and is a reminder that performers should really explore the Sondheim oeuvre far more because it is full of gems. Send In The Clowns was not the great man’s only contribution to popular music.