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Live to Love
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Malala
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We Do Need Love
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Palladium
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All is Quiet
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Simple As
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Sweet Devotion
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It’s Tomorrow’s World
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I Took Your Hand
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A Certain Kind of Eden
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Someday We’ll All Be Free
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Be Kind
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Something’s Gotta Give
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It’s Tomorrow’s World (Reprise)
Jacqui Dankworth – Vocals
Charlie Wood – Fender Rhodes (tracks 1-4, 7, 8, 10-12, 14), organ (tracks 1, 4, 8, 14), piano (tracks 3, 5, 6)
Ben Castle – Soprano sax (tracks 2, 4, 5, 9), tenor sax (tracks 3, 10, 11, 14)
Chris Allard – Acoustic guitar (tracks 1, 5-7, 10, 12), electric guitar (tracks 1, 3)
Geoff Gascoyne – Electric bass (tracks 1-3, 7, 8, 12, 14), acoustic bass (tracks 4-6, 9, 10, 13)
Mike Smith – Drums (tracks 1, 3, 5-7, 12)
Ralph Salmins – Drums (tracks 2, 4, 8, 10, 11, 14)
Paul Clarvis – Percussion (tracks 2, 4, 8, 10, 12, 14)
The Brodsky Quartet
(tracks 5, 7, 9)
Daniel Rowland, Ian Belton - Violins
Paul Cassidy – Viola
Jacqueline Thomas – Cello
Jacqui Dankworth’s latest CD offers a contrast with
It Happens Quietly, her previous disc, inasmuch as the standards
she sang there have been replaced, for the most part, by material
originating from Jacqui herself and from the musicians surrounding
her. These include her husband, the Memphis-born singer and keyboard
player, Charlie Wood, her bassist Geoff Gascoyne, who arranged many
of the tracks, plus the multi-talented Malcolm Edmonstone, who has
worked with Jacqui as her Musical Director on other occasions. For
all that shift in emphasis, there are individual pieces here written
by Wayne Shorter (Palladium), Enrico Pieranunzi (I Took
Your Hand) and Donny Hathaway (Some Day We’ll All Be Free)
as well as a further tribute to Jacqui’s father, the late great Sir
John Dankworth, in the form of two separate takes of his television
theme It’s Tomorrow’s World to which Jacqui has added her
own lyrics. The only conventional standard is Johnny Mercer’s Something’s
Gotta Give where Jacqui shows just what a great interpreter of
a classic number she is, while Geoff Gascoyne on acoustic bass goes
through his paces as her sole accompanist.
On three tracks Jacqui and her musicians are joined by the
Brodsky Quartet, no strangers to the jazz/pop crossover scene and
heard to good effect, especially on All is Quiet, a poignant
song about the slave trade, where Jacqui’s purity of tone and Ben
Castle’s haunting soprano sax are to the fore. All the tracks repay
repeated listening but I liked We Do Need Love, a tuneful
ballad with a message and with Charlie Wood on backing vocals providing
sterling keyboard work. Ben Castle swings discreetly behind the lyric
on tenor. Another favourite is Sweet Devotion, a catchy melody
allied to strong lyrics with Jacqui’s voice clear as a bell, Chris
Allard on acoustic guitar and the Brodsky Quartet again in evidence
with Mike Smith unobtrusively driving the number along. This one sticks
in the mind. Be Kind is quite simply a good song, the lyrics
and tune supplied by Dankworth herself, with Allard again on mellow
form. Simple As is gently swinging and charmingly sung. It’s
a number with a nostalgic feel to it. Other highlights are Charlie
Wood’s blues-tinged organ solo (as befits a native of Memphis) on
Live To Love, Geoff Gascoyne’s stylish work on electric bass
on It’s Tomorrow’s World, and the interaction between Ben
Castle’s tenor and Charlie Wood’s Fender Rhodes behind Jacqui’s voice
on Someday We’ll All Be Free.
So there it is. Jacqui Dankworth’s innate musicianship, her ear for a tune and her aptitude for lyric writing, taken with her capacity to put together a
group of quality musicians, has led to yet another satisfying album. Listening to this I could hear echoes of some of her work with Field of Blue in the
mid-nineties, but she doesn’t stand still. Her many admirers will find much to appreciate in this latest offering. Recommended.
James Poore
CD Reviews
Specific Jazz SPEC 018
