Music Review: Anne Ducros - "Either Way"

This article was first published at Blogcritics

You may think you have heard the songs from the Great American Songbook more than enough times so that you have no desire to hear them again.  Think again; you haven’t heard them like you’ll hear them on Either Way, the new album from French jazz singer Anne Ducros. That she makes these hoary standards her own, doesn’t come close to doing justice to what she does with them. She transforms them, and more important her transformations are absolutely killer.

She takes the original song and pushes its musical possibilities as far as they will go. This is a singer who colors outside the lines. Her vocals are a perfect demonstration of what a jazz singer should be doing. Many jazz singers are content to interpret, Anne Ducros creates. In a sense what she does with a song parallels what her deconstructionist countryman Jacques Derrida does with literature. The original song becomes a remembered shadow that marks just how far she’s taken its ideas.

All this wouldn’t make much difference if the lady couldn’t sing.  No problem, this is a lady with the chops to make her music work. If her performances don’t quite make you forget the originals, they sure give them a run for their money.

The concept of the album as Ducros explains is to work with songs associated with great Ella Fitzgerald and somewhat surprisingly Marilyn Monroe. The two are associated because of Fitzgerald’s acknowledgement of a debt to Monroe for a booking she got at the prestigious Mocambo in Los Angeles, at a time when black artists were discriminated against. Monroe, it seems, called the club owner and demanded Fitzgerald be booked immediately. She promised to show up and take a front row table every night of the gig. With that kind of publicity, how could he refuse?

The album is made up of 15 songs, 14 standards and one, the title tune, original. Although there are some guest performers, the singer for the most part is backed by a quartet: Gilles Nicolas on double bass and electric bass, Benoît de Mesmay on piano, Maxime Blesin on guitars and percussion, and Bruno Castelucci on drums. It is a tight ensemble that not only backs up Ducros to perfection but contributes some fine solo work as well.

The songs— “You’d Be Surprised,” “My Heart Belongs to Daddy,” “Thou Swell,” just to name a few, all titles you know—need to be heard to understand what Ducros is doing. Check out her version of “Summertime” and you begin to get an idea of the complexity of her art. And classics like “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got that Swing),” “A Fine Romance,” and “Laura” push the cliché envelope even further.

Either Way is perhaps the finest album from a jazz vocalist, I’ve heard this year, and certainly the most interesting.

Music Review:Chris Connor: Chris Connor Sings Gentle Bossa Nova ova

Article first published as Music Review: Chris Connor - Chris Connor Sings Gentle Bossa Nova on Blogcritics.

Back in the fifties when jazz vocalist Chris Connor was at her peak, it always seemed that like most of the other female singers of the period, she took a back seat to Ella Fitzgerald. It was as though there was Ella, and there was everyone else. Now while there is no question Ella Fitzgerald was a remarkable talent who deserved every accolade she received, Connor and others deserve some time out from under her shadow. This is not to say that the singer had no recognition in her day. Her records were best sellers and her appearances in legendary jazz clubs like Birdland and the Village Vanguard were sell outs. And although she made her share of TV appearances, she never quite achieved the mass appeal of Fitzgerald.

Perhaps that's why in 1965, after leaving her long term relationship with Atlantic Records, she would join with producer Kenny Greengrass and arrangers Pat Williams and later Don Sebesky to turn out a couple of albums with a pop flare much more likely to have an appeal to a larger audience. Unfortunately, if that were the intention, like many of the best laid plans, it didn’t quite pan out as hoped: for whatever reason the records never went very far. And that is doubly a shame, because they show the singer at her accessible best. Luckily of us the first of these, Chris Connor Sings Gentle Bossa Nova, is soon to be re-released by Just A Memory Records. Old timers will have the luxury of revisiting one of the great voices of their youth; youngsters will have the joy of discovery.

Connor's smooth styling and crystalline tone were made for the mellow dance rhythms of the bossa nova, the jazzy Brazilian import which was sweeping the country with the Stan Getz '64 recording of "The Girl From Ipanema" with the Astrud Gilberto vocal. Not only did the Latin transplant have pop cache, saxophone master Getz gave it jazz credibility as well. As repertoire for Connor it was a no brainer. Nearly all of the songs they chose for the album had been popular hits. There was a nice variety and Williams' arrangements swing. It should have been a smash, and even a cursory listen to the album today has to make you wonder why it wasn't.
The album opens with the Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" and follows with the Petula Clark hit, "Downtown." There are tunes from Hollywood: "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte" from the Bette Davis, Olivia de Haviland horror flick and a really fine version of "The Shadow of Your Smile" from The Sandpiper. "Baby the Rain Must Fall," also from a film, is something of a disappointment with its chirpy arrangement, especially for anyone who remembers the drama of Glen Yarborough's recording. There are some show tunes including what for my money is the highlight of the album a smoky version of the classic "Feeling Good" that is as good as any you are likely to hear. Her sultry version of "A Taste of Honey," trumpeter Herb Alpert's instrumental hit, is another winner.

All in all, Chris Connor Sings Gentle Bossa Nova was an album that deserved a better fate. Lori Muscarelle, Connor's manager and partner, describes their disappointment that the beautiful piece of work Connor and Williams had produced "just got buried somewhere." This re-release should give it a real shot at resurrection.