David Gelly, The Observer
18th May 2008
The great American lyricist Fran Landesman has lived quietly in London for decades. No one has ever revealed the panic beneath the brittle smile with more devastating precision. In recent times she has found perfect collaborators in composer-pianist Simon Wallace and singer Sarah Moule, and their joint work accounts for 10 of these 14 tracks.
Delicately arranged and played by a cast of our top jazz musicians (Alan Barnes, Alec Dankworth et al), they show that Fran is still in great form. Add one of the best Atkin-James songs and a few more goodies and you have a little treasure.
Peter Quinn, Jazzwise
July 2008
***
She may have switched record labels – her previous two releases both appeared on Linn Records – but vocalist Sarah Moule’s artistic focus remains firmly tuned into the oeuvre of Landesman and Wallace.
Of the 14 tracks that make up the album, the majority come from the powerfully distinctgive songwriting duo. And why not, when the results are as rewarding as the date-gone-wrong-angst of ‘It’s Not Your Night’ (There’s a singer who’s murdering your favourite song/As you sit there and wonder why it all went wrong/You’re an island of Chekhov in a Disney song/It’s not your night’). Or the truckload of anguish served up by ‘The Last Smoker’ (‘Goodbye to liberty/In the land of the banned’).
Of the non-Landesman/Wallace material, Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn’s ‘I Fall In Love Too Easily’ supples immediate gratification of a musical sweet tooth – Moule sounding spookily like k.d. lang on certain phrases – while ‘I Will Write My Book’ by US songwriter, producer and performer Joe Henry, receives a spacious, minimalist arrangement à la Larry Klein. Once again, brilliantly arranged and produced by Wallace, who features on piano, Hammond and accordion, leading a band of exceptional depth and experience. this is an album of beguiling variety and telling detail.
Chris Parker, July 2008
Although she does occasionally scat and is clearly influenced by jazz phrasing, Sarah Moule is best described – as in her publicity material – as ‘one of the UK’s foremost interpreters of modern song’.
On this Red Ram album (a previous couple were made for Linn), she concentrates her intelligent and subtle vocal powers on material written by an extraordinarily fertile songwriting team, pianist Simon Wallace and Fran Landesman.
Their songs range from the sensuous title-track (co-written with Julie Birchill), given an appropriately languorous treatment by Moule, through sexily witty blues-based pieces (‘Hyde Side Blues’, which addresses the Jekyll and Hyde theme from a slightly unusual angle) to wry explorations of the emotional balancing acts involved in love affairs – all impeccably delivered by Moule, who is able to express both straightforward emotion and artily literate complexities (‘You’re an island of Chekhov in a Disney throng’) with equal ease and assurance.
With the originals tastefully complemented by a couple of standards, the Styne/Cahn classic ‘I Fall in Love Too Easily’ (delicately latinised) and the Bob Dorough/Terrell Kirk Jr swinger ‘Devil May Care’ (which brings to mind Claire Martin, whom Moule slightly resembles in her ability to combine conversational informality with discreet artfulness), and the whole flawlessly performed by the core band of Wallace himself, bassist Mark Hodgson/Alec Dankworth and drummer Paul Robinson – sporadically supplemented by guitarist Mike Outram, shakuhachi player Clive Bell, saxophonist Alan Barnes and percussionist Paul Clarvis – this is a fine album that manages to combine immediate accessibility with considerable subtlety.
Brian Blain, Jazz UK
February/March 2009
Although the band boasts top guns like Alan Barnes and Mike Outram as well as occasional haunting colours from Clive Bell’s shakuhachi, they are all deployed completely in the service of the songs by MD, pianist and organ player Simon Wallace, an absolute master of his craft. He can turn in those storytelling piano solos as well, check ‘Remind Me’.
Most of the material is from the growing canon of work by Wallace himself and that brilliantly sharp lyricist Fran Landesman, who specialises in wryly humorous appraisals of love and a certain kind of metropolitan angst – searching for chemical comfort, wondering why we’re depressed – which peaks on the insinuatingly catchy ‘Living In Overdrive’.
Moule can actually strut, but you have to wait until track 10, Bob Dorough’s ‘Devil May Care’ (boasting an insanely good bass solo from Alec Dankworth), for her to show it. So for once just forget about looking for jazz thrills and let the verbal intelligence, original tunes that you can actually remember and Sarah Moule’s truly outstanding voice get under your skin. They certainly did mine.