AMY LONDON
WHEN I LOOK IN YOUR EYES
There’s A Boat That’s Leavin’ Soon For New York; Wonderful, Wonderful; Wouldn’t You?; Such Eyes, So Beautiful; Ohio/Anyplace I Hang My Hat Is Home; It Could Be So Nice; When I Look in Your Eyes; Swingin’ The Blues; With Every Breath I Take; Lazy Susan; Passarim; The Best is Yet To Come (51.22)
Collective personnel: Amy London (voc); Richie Vitale (t); John Mosca (tb); Chris Byers (as/ts/f/arr); Dan Greenblatt (ts/ss); John Hicks (p); Lee Musiker (p/arr); Roni Ben-Hur (g/arr); Rufus Reid (b); Leroy Williams (d); Steve Kroon (perc). Englewood, New Jersey, August 8 & 9, 2005.
(Motema Music MTM-00011)
With some singers, you know right away from the first few notes that they are steeped in jazz. That’s the immediate feeling imparted by Amy London, who tackles some really adventurous and challenging material in this ambitious collection. It isn’t every day that you find a vocalist who has investigated the compositions of Elmo Hope; Miss London gives us brace, “Such Eyes, So Beautiful” and “It Could Be So Nice”, replete with her own intelligent lyrics.
She also defineates a Dizzy Gillespie classic with words by Bob Dorough and Ray Passman, in “Wouldn’t You”, and really gets in a terrific groove on a splendid version of ddie Durham’s felicitous touch to Gershwin (There’s A Boat That’s Leavin…”), and a pair of Cy Coleman beauties, “With Every Breath I Take and “The Best Is Yet To Come.”
She melds together “Ohio” and “Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Hme”, unearths a neglected page of Jobim, “Passarim”, and enhances the value of “Wonderful, Wonderful”, “Lazy Susan” and a touching song from “Dr. Doolittle”, “When I Look In Your Eyes.”
When it comes to improvisation, she doesn’t put a note wrong, and the entire package is boistered by an impressive line-up of players, not leaset her husband, that fine guitarist Roni Ben-Hur, and the late pianist of distinction, John Hicks, present on eight of the 12 selections in what must have been one of his last recording sessions.
Seven of the well turned arrangemens are the work of saxaphonist Chris Byers with pianist Lee Musiker responsible for three and Roni Ben-Hur for the closing of Cy Coleman tune. All in all, a first class production by an eminently listenable singer, equally at home with swingers as she is with ballads. She puts many better known names in the shade!
Mark Gardner