Sarah Moule (vocals); Simon Wallace (piano); Neville Malcolm (bass); Paul Robinson (drums) + Nigel Price (guitar).
This past year or so has, if nothing else, seen the release of a lot of fine vocal albums and Sarah Moule’s Stormy Emotions is certainly high on that list.
Regular site visitors, having read my rave reviews, won’t be surprised to learn that when the opportunity arose to check out the launch of that very same album at Pizza Express I donned my mask, sanitised everything that needed sanitising and hopped a south bound freighter – Dean Street here I come.
I wasn’t disappointed!
Hearing Fran Landesman’s lyrics live was like hearing the CD played over a top of the range sound system plus you had extended solos from the band.
Price was on fire – when is he not? Wallace was too and so he should be seeing as he wrote the tunes!
However, the real star was the late wordsmith. Fran’s lyrics should be in every songbird’s repertoire. They would be like a breath of fresh air after the Summertimes, the Funny Valentines and the Crying Rivers.
Nevertheless, having said that, there can’t be many, if any, who can handle them quite the way that Sarah Moule does. Interestingly, as Sarah told us snippets of Fran’s life, the lyrics took on an even greater significance.
Not that the gig was restricted to songs from the album. The second set included some Ellington – an excellent Prelude To A Kiss – and a few other standards including an I Only Have Eyes For You that had a scat/vocalese chorus that may have been based on some bop horn solo – come in Sarah!
That Old Black Magic, a bluesy Feet Do Your Stuff, I Ain’t Got Nothin’ but The Blues and a blistering Perdido to finish.
I left on a high. In fact the last time I left a vocal gig in London feeling so euphoric was after hearing Mel Tormé and George Shearing at the RFH way back when.
This was that sort of night… Lance