Year: 2022
File: MP3@128K/s
Time: 48:44
Size: 49,3 MB
Art: Front
(2:03) 1. When My Sugar Walks Down The Street
(4:21) 2. I Just Couldn't Take It, Baby
(3:05) 3. Believe It, Beloved
(5:08) 4. I Hate To Leave You Now
(2:48) 5. Blue River
(3:37) 6. Baby, Oh Where Can You Be?
(3:59) 7. Sunday
(4:18) 8. How Can I (With You In My Heart)?
(2:22) 9. Sing It Way Down Low
(3:36) 10. The Object Of My Affection
(2:39) 11. I'm Having My Fun
(3:58) 12. Say It Simple
(4:17) 13. Draggin' My Heart Around
(2:28) 14. I Would Do Anything For You
I remember very clearly the first time I heard Alice Spencer (on disc: I haven’t had the pleasure of encountering her in person). My reaction was loud pleased astonishment, and the expurgated version would read: “Who in the sacred name of Jack Kapp is she?” “Jazz singers” proliferate these days, but some seem to have given more thought to their hair stylist or their cover photograph than to the music. Alice’s love for this music and this period bubbles up on every track.
For me the great singer-virtues are a deep understanding of the emotional content of the lyrics without jokes on one hand or melodrama on the other. An unforced swing, a willingness to improvise without undermining melody or lyrics, plain-spoken diction, and, perhaps most importantly, the ability to convey joy. We gravitate to music that doesn’t hurt our feelings, or our ears. Alice understands that as well as embodying it.
This disc reminds me, perhaps at an unusual angle, of the miracles Basie and friends created, imbuing the saddest song (hear DRAGGIN’ MY HEART AROUND) with a wink at the listener (“Isn’t it fun to swing along so gloomily?”) or reminding us that there is a touch of melancholy in any elation.
I’d direct you first to I HATE TO LEAVE YOU NOW, one of the gorgeous Thirties songs (linked to Fats and Louis, one of the ideal combinations of Western civilization) that are the gems in the constellation of this disc. What I hear, and I hope you do also, is a rare combination of emotional intelligence Alice knows how to feel, how to tell a story in song and light-heartedness.
Her art is both delicate and sincere. She doesn’t have to take off her shoe and hit us over the head, but we know the tale of hope, longing, and ardor the song, and she, convey. And the subtly memorable variations on the theme between her first and second choruses are a Jazz Studies program in themselves. No, better.
It’s also clear that although this might not be Alice’s conventional repertoire (the wonderful program is inspired by the deep listening of Hal Smith, scholar and swing percussionist) that she is being herself on every performance. Yes, I hear echoes of young Ella and of Helen Humes and Connee, but Alice has not spent her evenings mimicking them. What Louis called TONATION and PHRASING are all hers, and they touch our hearts in each phrase.
Hear her “I need you!” in BABY, WHERE CAN YOU BE? The way she handles the verse to SUNDAY, rising to pure pleasure at the end. Wow is what I say. The wistful tenderness of THE OBJECT OF MY AFFECTION and HOW CAN I? The “It’s my birthday today!” delight of I’M HAVING MY FUN. To paraphrase Whitney Balliett, Alice is a great actress who doesn’t need a script.
The same mastery comes through in the instrumentalists who join Alice on her musical journeys. No one needs multiple choruses to tell their tale. Perhaps you’ll hear echoes of the great Holiday-Wilson sessions, of Bing, Jack, Louis: I could call the names of the Heroic Ancestors who have informed the music of honored individualists Marc, Kris, James, and Hal, but I’ll leave that to you what Barbara Lea called “Sounding Like.” A lifetime research project with a lifetime of rewards.
If these notes go on too long, I might get in the way of your absorbing the delights captured here, not once but many times. In an extended California sojourn, I learned about “sound healing,” how the right vibrations could put a psychically lopsided being into happy balance. I think that Doctor Spencer and her practitioners have just the remedy for what ails us, and I hope the prescription is renewable for many more sessions.
https://jazzlives.wordpress.com/2022/10/09/alice-spencer-sings-and-we-are-glad-with-hal-smith-kris-tokarski-james-singleton-marc-caparone/#comments
For me the great singer-virtues are a deep understanding of the emotional content of the lyrics without jokes on one hand or melodrama on the other. An unforced swing, a willingness to improvise without undermining melody or lyrics, plain-spoken diction, and, perhaps most importantly, the ability to convey joy. We gravitate to music that doesn’t hurt our feelings, or our ears. Alice understands that as well as embodying it.
This disc reminds me, perhaps at an unusual angle, of the miracles Basie and friends created, imbuing the saddest song (hear DRAGGIN’ MY HEART AROUND) with a wink at the listener (“Isn’t it fun to swing along so gloomily?”) or reminding us that there is a touch of melancholy in any elation.
I’d direct you first to I HATE TO LEAVE YOU NOW, one of the gorgeous Thirties songs (linked to Fats and Louis, one of the ideal combinations of Western civilization) that are the gems in the constellation of this disc. What I hear, and I hope you do also, is a rare combination of emotional intelligence Alice knows how to feel, how to tell a story in song and light-heartedness.
Her art is both delicate and sincere. She doesn’t have to take off her shoe and hit us over the head, but we know the tale of hope, longing, and ardor the song, and she, convey. And the subtly memorable variations on the theme between her first and second choruses are a Jazz Studies program in themselves. No, better.
It’s also clear that although this might not be Alice’s conventional repertoire (the wonderful program is inspired by the deep listening of Hal Smith, scholar and swing percussionist) that she is being herself on every performance. Yes, I hear echoes of young Ella and of Helen Humes and Connee, but Alice has not spent her evenings mimicking them. What Louis called TONATION and PHRASING are all hers, and they touch our hearts in each phrase.
Hear her “I need you!” in BABY, WHERE CAN YOU BE? The way she handles the verse to SUNDAY, rising to pure pleasure at the end. Wow is what I say. The wistful tenderness of THE OBJECT OF MY AFFECTION and HOW CAN I? The “It’s my birthday today!” delight of I’M HAVING MY FUN. To paraphrase Whitney Balliett, Alice is a great actress who doesn’t need a script.
The same mastery comes through in the instrumentalists who join Alice on her musical journeys. No one needs multiple choruses to tell their tale. Perhaps you’ll hear echoes of the great Holiday-Wilson sessions, of Bing, Jack, Louis: I could call the names of the Heroic Ancestors who have informed the music of honored individualists Marc, Kris, James, and Hal, but I’ll leave that to you what Barbara Lea called “Sounding Like.” A lifetime research project with a lifetime of rewards.
If these notes go on too long, I might get in the way of your absorbing the delights captured here, not once but many times. In an extended California sojourn, I learned about “sound healing,” how the right vibrations could put a psychically lopsided being into happy balance. I think that Doctor Spencer and her practitioners have just the remedy for what ails us, and I hope the prescription is renewable for many more sessions.
https://jazzlives.wordpress.com/2022/10/09/alice-spencer-sings-and-we-are-glad-with-hal-smith-kris-tokarski-james-singleton-marc-caparone/#comments
Sing It Way Down Low