Claire Martin launches new album 'Almost In Your Arms' at Ronnie Scott’s
Peter Quinn
Monday, October 7, 2024
The multi-award winning British singer captivated her Soho audience with songs from her latest album
Claire Martin's second album with her exceptional Swedish trio, Almost In Your Arms, received a spectacular London launch at a sold-out Ronnie Scott’s. The evening showcased sublime storytelling and innovative song reinventions, complemented by wonderful accompaniment from pianist/arranger Martin Sjöstedt, bassist Niklas Fernqvist, and drummer Daniel Fredriksson.
The evening got off to an explosive start with the energising blast of the album’s lead-off track, ‘I Feel A Song Coming On’. Martin’s deep pocket was heard to great effect on the title track, composed by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, a duo hailed by music writer Warren Craig as “the last great songwriters in Hollywood”.
James McMillan, the album’s producer, added smoky, introspective muted trumpet to a sprinkling of songs including the exquisite jazz waltz ‘September Song’, which he co-wrote with lyricist, Don Black. The delicious McMillan-Martin collaboration, ‘Apparently, I'm Fine’, sounded like a theme song from a lost neo-noir. The Bacharach/Costello masterpiece ‘This House Is Empty Now’ proved to be one of the most beautiful covers you’ll hear this or any other year, while the spirit of Peggy Lee seemed to hover over ‘Water and Salt’, from the repertoire of Ty Jeffries’ cult creation, Miss Hope Springs.
We were also treated to material from Martin’s previous collaboration with the trio, the superb 2019 album, Believin’ It, including a deeply swinging homage to Lena Horne, ‘Come Runnin’, Joni Mitchell’s metaphor of love as a fast car, ‘You Dream Flat Tires’, and Michael Franks’ ‘Rainy Night In Tokyo’, where the trio’s superfine dynamic control enabled Martin to achieve a light-as-air quality.
Other highlights included the Poinciana groove of ‘The Man I Love’ in which the music-making seemed to hang in the air like smoke, a supercharged ‘All Or Nothing At All’ marked by Sjöstedt’s thunderous McCoy Tyner-esque block chords, plus the classic Wes Montgomery tune ‘Full House’, with new lyrics by Imogen Ryall (renamed ‘In Good Company’ here), which saw Martin and the trio spectacularly take flight in perfect rhythmic sync.
“We’ve got some CDs, we’ve got some vinyl – that was really heavy, I hope I can flog it tonight,” Martin quipped, before bringing the house down with the late, great Ernestine Anderson’s finger-popping signature song ‘Never Make Your Move Too Soon’.
