Jazz breaking news: Liane Carroll Launches New Album In Streatham’s Hideaway Club
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Some vocalists are known for their sotto voce ballads, others for their incredible sense of time or interpretative insights.
As this official launch gig for Liane Carroll's new album Up and Down illustrated, this is a singer who effortlessly combines all of these qualities and more.
For their powerful mix of intense feeling and poetic conviction, ‘Take Me Home’ and ‘I Can Let Go Now’ (a.k.a. ‘The Imodium Song’) were standouts, as was a super-deluxe arrangement of ‘Turn Out The Stars’, which I’d count as one of the finest I’ve heard. Thanks to a request during the interval, Liane dusted down one of her memorable originals, ‘Dublin Morning’, segueing beautifully into a typically creative reworking of ‘Summertime’.
Alongside her regular trio of Mark Fletcher on drums and Roger Carey on bass – their blast through ‘Witchcraft’ kicked off the first set – we were also treated to the superb instrumental work of album producer James McMillan (trumpet/flugelhorn), Mark Jaimes (guitar), Julian Siegel (tenor and soprano sax) and Mark Edwards (piano/Hammond organ). As I said in my Jazzwise review, it’s one of the finest vocal jazz albums you’ll hear this or any other year. So, Christmas is nearly here – what are you waiting for?
– Peter Quinn