Wish It Wasn’t True
You
A Little Contented Place
Beware Of Your Heart
I Just Can’t Stop The Tears
That’ll Be Us
The Picture
I’m Looking At You With New Eyes
Romance Addio
Cara
Cutch O’Lanza
Mexico Blue
Hindsight
Melissa Stott (vcl) with Stjepko Gut (tpt,
flugelhorn), Matteo Raggi (tnr sax/bassoon),
Angela Alessi (vln), Nico Menci (pno), Max
Chirico (pno – tracks 3,4,12,13), Davide Brillante
(gtr), Pietro Ciancaglini (dbl bass), Alessandro
Minetto (dms)
Rec. Artesuono Studios, Udine, October 2006
www.leorecords.com
www.melissastott.com
As I noted in her debut Feet
First disc Melissa Stott was born in Manchester
to a Singaporean-Chinese mother and an English
father and now lives in Italy where she’s
married to the pianist and trumpeter Max Chirico.
That first album, rooted loosely in the classic
Mainstream, also sported self-penned songs
that added depth to the programme, songs that
seemed confessional.
With this second disc Stott
has now written all thirteen songs and she
broadens her stylistic and harmonic base further
whilst once more being supported by her fine
Italian band.
Things are decidedly more
boppish than the earlier album, which embraced
jump and bossa and thirties swing. There are
more affiliations here pianistically with
say, Bill Evans and Al Haig this time around.
Then too the range of sound and colour is
broadened – Matteo Raggi plays a long opening
bassoon solo in A Little Contented Place
which is also infused with some of the same
quality of easy Latin swing and Dave Newton
piano that also informed that first album.
In fact the slow tempo reminds me of another
influence, Stacey Kent, and her gorgeous version
with Newton of Close Your Eyes.
Beware Of Your Heart
is a Three Little Words type of song
and has some fluid bop lines from Gut and
rather more mainstream ones from Raggi. Throughout
the album we can hear not only the sensitive
introspection and wit of the lyrics but also
some sensibly varied arrangements – chase
choruses, walking bass lines, that pervasive
Getz-derived bossa feel. We can also hear
the violin of Angela Alessi in a couple
of tracks, in the latter of which, Hindsight,
Stott opens with a introductory paragraph
of decidedly English folk song affiliations.
Then again the band perfectly catches the
authentic Blue Note sound in Cara.
Less interesting to me is Strott’s obvious
enthusiasm for Ella Fitzgerald’s scat singing,
which marks out Cutch O’Lanza (something
jokey is going on with that title) – she also
visited this territory on her first album.
Enough already.
Stott continues to explore
in this album. An all self-penned disc is
a risky business but survives here by virtue
of the various rhythmic and harmonic varieties
explored. The stylistic exuberance of that
first album has transformed into something
more harmonious. And the Stacey Kent influence
has been more thoroughly absorbed now. Still,
a few standards wouldn’t be a bad thing and
let’s hope her next album will see her exploring
them, along with her own eloquent songs.
Jonathan Woolf
CD Reviews
FEET FIRST FFR 5005 [68:44]
