Stormy Emotions – top-notch musicianship and vocals do justice to poetic lyrics

Posted on by pieceofpinkpie

Talented British jazz vocalist Sarah Moule has a new album on the way – Stormy Emotions is an uplifting collection of songs written by her husband Simon Wallace and the late, great American poet and lyricist Fran Landesman.

Sarah spent 18 years working with Simon and Fran, and with this album introduces 10 previously unrecorded songs from the vast catalogue they wrote together.

Fran and Simon wrote the title track Stormy Emotions on the day they met in 1993. Eighteen years later, on the day Fran died, aged 83, in 2011, they finished Nothing Is Mine Now, which is the opening track on this album. In all, they composed more than 300 songs together.

Born in New York in 1927, Fran Landesman’s lyrics have been sung by the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Barbra Streisand. “I got lucky meeting Simon,” she once said. “That he married Sarah Moule was a bonus. She’s the jazz singer par excellence.”

This new album, Sarah’s fifth, was recorded in their studio in South East London amid all the challenges of 2020, and draws on the talents of long-time musical collaborators on various tracks: Mick Hutton and Neville Malcolm on bass, Paul Robinson and Rod Youngs on drums, Nigel Price and Charlie Cawood on guitar, and Mark Lockheart on sax and bass clarinet. Simon plays piano on all 12 tracks

It’s a super collection of songs, many of which sound like instant classics, including two designated as singles – Never That’s When and Nothing Is Mine Now. The musicianship is top-notch, as you’d expect – but what an achievement under the circumstances that the pandemic created. And Sarah’s voice is stunning – no wonder Jazz FM’s Helen Mayhew described her as “one of the best jazz singers in the country”.

Fran Landesman’s lyrics of time and love are pure poetry, and it takes a voice of Sarah Moule’s calibre to do them justice.

Stormy Emotions is available in CD format from 19th March 2021 and as a download from 3rd May. You can find more details and order the album on Sarah’s site here.

Here’s a promo video about the album, including an interview with Sarah and Simon, and for updates you can follow Sarah on Twitter or Facebook.