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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Shaw thing, 8 Dec 2002
It's clear that Ian Shaw is a storytelling singer. It may be someone else's story, but Shaw is a maker of musical sounds who always studies the words. This attraction to good writing leads him to some rich material, and songs that other jazz vocalists haven't picked out yet. So with a new Ian Shaw CD, you can expect new material - and the newest here is almost as new as the album - as well as the work of the creators of the popular songbook. Consequently, the range of songwriting is as extensive as Shaw's vocal range. And that is something. For one thing, between his pacy swing through the classic "Dearly beloved" and "Tomorrow never came", a gem from that mistress of suburban sad, Fran Landesman, lie over sixty years; and, for another, Shaw can caress in mellow baritone and swoop to a falsetto as effortlessly (and as winningly) as a Lleyton Hewitt low half-volley return followed by a winning smash.So "Soho Stories" is an honest title, and a clever one. It is the second album that Shaw, the British male jazz vocalist of the moment who made his name at Ronnie Scott's in the early '90s, has made in New York with an Anglo-American line-up of musicians. So it's Soho meets SoHo, and it builds on the success of the first transatlantic effort, the excellent "In A New York Minute", by cementing his reputation Stateside among people who care about good songs sung well and creatively. While the mix of material, and generations, is broad, the flow of music is consistent because Shaw gets well into the spirit and harmony of the songs. He is a most welcome musical magpie, alighting on Hoagy Carmmichael's "How little we know" (the Bacall ballad from "To Have and Have Not"), and, metaphorically, making himself so at home that the lyric re-emerges utterly believed in with that uncertainty that greets a new relationship. Then there's Janis Ian's "Ruby" which yields a world of tragic consequences, in a tough arrangement by Shaw himself (one of many). From there, where do you stop? Who else, at present, records such compelling collections of musical short stories? In there is Dorothy Parker's "I wished on the moon" (too rarely sung nowadays) and the poignant masterpiece by Jack Segal and Marvin Fisher, "I keep goin' back to Joe's", which Shaw's staccato phrasing actually strengthens. The stories are by no means all of the 'round midnight variety. There's the sprightly "Comes love" - "comes a rainstorm/you put rubbers on your feet, comes a snowstorm/you can get a little heat" go the words, and Shaw adds light and movement too. And how did he choose "Happy with the blues"? Or more accurately, why don't more people do this number? To hear it, and to ask the same question, you have to buy this album. Shaw is characteristically generous in his credits to the musicians he works with. His leadership is apparent, but so is his teamwork. James Pearson is his regular pianist, and his great sense of time and keyboard wit are on show here as they are at any gig he plays. On one track Pearson cedes the piano stool to the legendary Cedar Walton, while deployed over the album's playing time is outstanding work by Eric Alexander (ts), Chip Jackson (bass), Mark Fletcher (drums), among others. The album notes, by Grammy Award-winner Joel E. Siegel, are also good. And how often can you say all of that?
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~ Ian Shaw
~ Ian Shaw
~ Ian Shaw
~ Stacey Kent
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