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Black Box
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Liz Fletcher
Live in the Park
black box BBJ1008
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- Your Mind is on Vacation
- Sunshine
- Sugar
- Do You?
- Moanin’
- The Meaning of the Blues
- Day by Day/500 Miles High
- What Good is Spring
- (Life’s a Breeze) Pigs can fly
- You Don’t Need Nobody
Liz Fletcher – Vocals
Roy Babbington – Bass
Marc Parnell – drums
Will Parnell – Percussion
Mark Johns – Guitar
Robin Aspland – piano
Matt Wates – Alto
This album was recorded at the Ealing Jazz festival
in 1998. Ealing has become a beacon in jazz festivals, both for the
excellence of its programme and for the quality of the CD’s that have
been released of it’s content.
I heard Liz Fletcher’s debut album only a couple of
months ago and was impressed; my
review is already on the Music Web site. This live album confirms
to me that she is a jazz vocal talent to be reckoned with. This being
a live performance, it has the exciting feel of the public performance
about it. The band is also on top form,
Robin Aspland makes a great contribution on piano and
is obviously helped by the excellence of the bass playing of Roy Babbington
and the drumming of Marc Parnell.
Matt Wates on alto has that nice wistful sound that
is reminiscent of Paul Desmond, without ever attempting mimicry. Mark
Johns guitar work complements the other musicians and adds to the overall
excitement of the session.
Apart from Moanin’, where I felt she would have been
more comfortable in a different key, Liz carries this session off beautifully.
She has accurate intonation, good diction, good control of vibrato and
good selection of when to use it and most of all she swings.
The programme is a good mixture of the familiar and
the unfamiliar, a wide range of tempos and rhythms, but always delivered
with conviction.
One minor grumble, why print a sleeve not in black
on brown or brown on black. It is difficult to read and unattractive
to look at. Here we have a high quality album in a package which does
it’s best to put you off buying it. How strange!
Don Mather
CD Reviews
