Moanin’ (Timmons / Hendricks) [7:43] *
Watermelon Man (Hancock) [7:00] *
Autumn Leaves (Kosma / Prevert / Mercer) [7:43]
*
Night and Day (Porter) [4:13]
Lonely Woman (Silver) [5:21]
Doodlin’ (Silver / Hendricks) [4:41] *
The Sidewinder (Morgan) [6:00] *
Blues On The Corner (Tyner) [6:48]
Wonderful, Wonderful (Raleigh / Edwards) [4:36]
And What If I Don’t (Hancock) [5:31] *
Anita Wardell (vocals); *Alex Garnett (saxophones);
Robin Aspland (piano); Jeremy Brown (bass);
Steve Brown (drums)
Rec. Specific Sound, London, January 2006
Though born in England, the
jazz vocalist Anita Wardell lived in Australia
from the age of eleven; she studied at Adelaide
University, pursuing a four year degree in
Jazz Performance. It was then that she discovered
– and fell in love – with the pleasures of
be-bop and scat. Her heroes included the obvious
figures such as Charlie Parker, Miles Davis
and Chet Baker, as well as vocalists such
as Dave Lambert, Jon Hendricks, Annie Ross,
Mark Murphy, Ella Fitzgerald, Carmen McRae
and Betty Carter. She moved to London in 1989,
and has made an increasingly prominent reputation,
culminating – so far – in the award, in April
2006 of the BBC Best of Jazz prize, presented
to her by Cleo Laine.
Any listener who hasn’t had
the good fortune to hear her live, or to hear
any of her handful of earlier albums, will
surely understand, simply from a hearing of
this new album, why she should have won such
an award. Noted is essentially an exercise
– though I use that word without any of the
pejorative overtones that it might imply –
in vocalese, that is in the singing of lyrics
fitted to melodies which were originally improvised
by instrumental soloists. The pioneers of
the form included King Pleasure, Bas Gonzalez
and Eddie Jefferson and their innovations
were brought to more popular audiences by
the trio of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross as
well as by later performers such as Manhattan
Transfer and Kurt Elling. Anita Wardell loses
nothing by comparison to any of her predecessors.
On Noted she benefits
from the assistance of a superb supporting
band, especially pianist Robin Aspland, whose
work shows, not for the first time, that he
is an absolute master of the art of accompanying
a vocalist – and he’s a damn good soloist
too. As for Wardell’s own work, she sings
with wit and creativity and absolute technical
command. The opening version of Lee Morgan’s
solo from the Art Blakey Jazz Messenger’s
version of Bobby Timmons’ ‘Moanin’’ is rich
in melodic swoops and sudden leaps of pitch
and the virtuosity displayed here sets a standard
maintained almost throughout the album. Other
highlights include a version of Cannonball
Adderley’s magisterial solo on ‘Autumn Leaves’,
from his album Something Else and an
amusing interpretation of Horace Silver’s
‘Doodlin’’. All the material, indeed, is taken
from classic Blue Note Albums of the 1950s
and 60s – giving us one of the several, punning
meanings of the album’s title. All in all,
this is one of the best of recent vocal albums
in a period that has seen something of a renaissance
in jazz vocalism.
Glyn Pursglove
CD Reviews
SPECIFIC JAZZ SPEC006 [60:10] 
