Lucia Jackson's You and the Night and the Music

For a guy who has done his share of complaining about the preponderance of female voice recordings in contemporary jazz, not to mention audiophile obsessions with those same recordings, I'm certainly confronted with an embarrassment of riches right now. Just a few weeks after hearing Jacqueline Tabor's fabulous, near-perfect The Lady in the Gown, I suddenly have a plethora of new CDs that feature women jazz singers--and some of them are downright exquisite. Lucia Jackson's debut album, You and the Night and the Music, was the one that really leapt out at me at first listen, and for a number of reasons. First of all, I immediately connected with her voice. It doesn't have the rich, deep undercurrents of Tabor's voice, but it does have that charming girlishness that I hear in Ella Fitzgerald, that clarity that translates into honesty when it comes to supplying the meaning behind the lyrics.

Like The Lady in the Gown, this album also includes a gorgeous small ensemble that captures the magic of the late '50s and early '60s, something in the air that propels me back into Julie London's best recordings. Perhaps this is because her father is the great jazz guitarist Ron Jackson, master of the 7-string electric archtop, and he has produced this album and arranged these classics and supplied the vision. (His daughter did help with the arrangements of "Sophisticated Lady," "I'm a Fool to Want You" and her own composition "Feel the Love.") Father and daughter blend beautifully with the rest of the ensemble, pianist Yago Vasquez, bassist Matt Clohesy and drummer Corey Rawls, and we're also treated to special appearances such as Dan Garcia's flamenco guitar on "Feel the Love" and Javier Sanchez's sweet and wistful bandoneon on "I'm a Fool to Want You."

The story behind Lucia Jackson is intriguing as well. Like Janelle Monae, she was a dancer and a model and her career was going in all the right directions. But there's a problem--like Monae, it seems like a sin to keep a voice like this away from the world. (I'm a bit biased in this regard because I have much more use for a singer in my life than a dancer or a model.) She's developed a strong following in recent years and those fans raised $15,000 through Indiegogo for this project, which is compelling for a number of reasons. First of all, it's similar to the digital video revolution in the film industry in that artists can achieve their goals for far less money than traditional approaches. It's fairly amazing that $15,000 from a group of dedicated fans can ultimately result in an album this polished and classy. Second, this strategy forms a stronger bond between performer and audience. There are less people in the middle grabbing a piece of the pie.

It all comes back to the real treasure here, which is Jackson's smooth and relaxed voice, both lighthearted and vulnerable, the type of voice that makes you feel lucky to be in its presence. There's a precision in the way she ends each phrase, the care in which she delivers that last consonant with just the right amount of texture. Every word means something to her, and you should pay attention so you can catch her drift, so to speak. Lucia Jackson is the type of female singer who makes me want to forget every snarky comment I've made about the flood of female voice recordings out there. She makes me forget, in fact, why I had any complaints in the first place. Highly recommended.

Jacqueline Tabor's The Lady in the Gown

Whenever it's time to review yet another female jazz singer who's covering the Great American Songbook, I feel some trepidation. I'm not going to continue to complain about the female voice recordings anymore, especially since I've heard so many stellar singers over the last few months--Lyn Stanley, Noa Fort, Rondi Marsh, Lynn Veronneau and a few others. But more often than not I find there's a flicker of something I don't like in the voice, an affectation that seems less than genuine, anything that makes me put on my Terry Fletcher mask and say "Not my singer." Am I that picky? No, not really, but I really want someone to check all the little boxes. I want a beautiful voice, yes, but one that still sounds like no one else. I want a voice that has lived the voice of jazz, that reflects the entire spectrum of the life of a jazz singer. I want a great band to back that voice, and I want excellent sound quality. I want to feel like the singer is in the room with me. Everyone wants that last one, I think.

I didn't know that Jacquelin Tabor's new album The Lady in the Gown was going to tick all those boxes. I tried to avoid judging the album by its cover--photo of a beautiful lady, title of the album, very little in the way of graphic design, kind of no-frills. Looking further, I saw that this is another GAS album full of songs like "On Green Dolphin Street," "Autumn Leaves," "Misty" and "Caravan." I settled in for what I thought was going to be a predictably pleasant journey and was immediately struck by several things at once:

1) Tabor's voice is perfect to me. It's husky and slightly weary and yet almost unlimited in range. She hits all the right notes.

2) The band, a simple trio of Cole Schuster's guitar, Greg Feingold's bass and Max Holmberg's drums, sounds like every great jazz guitar trio you've heard from the '50s and '60s. These three sound like the same three guys who backed Dean Martin on Dream with Dean.

3) What great sound quality! Tabor is so present and upfront, you can almost feel the air from the sweep of that gown when she turns to watch the musicians.

So the project is rather simple in its conception--a great singer backed by a swinging trio, recorded impeccably. But it seems to transcend those modest goals by the sheer perfection of the execution. I know this is a fairly personal thing, but there's something about Tabor's voice that is so exquisitely rendered and so subjectively flawless. I don't think she sings one single note that isn't the right note, with the perfect amount of sustained vibrato. Yet there's nothing about her voice that isn't deeply human and touched by the emotions contained in the lyrics.

I've have to be honest here. I've never heard of Jacqueline Tabor before playing this CD for the first time. I listen to a lot of these CDs, from male and female singers trying to present their individual takes on the jazz we all know and love, and it's been a while since I've heard someone handle the challenge with such purity and confidence. It's easy to get lost in a sea of a singers who all have the chops to make it big. Here's hoping Jacqueline Tabor does exactly that. Highly recommended.