Gabrielle Ducomble - J'ai Deux Amours

Size: 123,1 MB
Time: 53:07
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2011
Styles: Jazz: Vocals
Art: Front

01. Haven't We Met (4:54)
02. J'ai Deux Amours (4:55)
03. Libertango (6:26)
04. Spring Is Here (6:02)
05. My Little Boat (4:34)
06. La Chanson Des Vieux Amants (5:35)
07. It Might As Well Be Spring (4:43)
08. Manha De Carnaval (4:09)
09. La Javanaise (4:37)
10. Never Will I Marry (3:22)
11. That's All (3:44)

Gabrielle Ducomble: J'ai Deux Amours Belgian singer Gabrielle Ducomble began her recording career in 2003, after reaching the finale of French television's Pop Idol. After hearing Dee Dee Bridgewater Ducomble started to move towards jazz, relocated to London and graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. So, while J'ai Deux Amours is not her first recording, it is her jazz debut.

Ducomble's voice is lightly expressive, with a slight vulnerability that adds emotional depth to the more romantic or melancholy songs. Her sound and her choice of composers give her a resemblance to Stacey Kent and to Dutch singer and actress Mathilde Santing. All three are comfortable with the Great American Songbook but are also willing to explore elsewhere—Ducomble covers the songs of French writer Serge Gainsbourg ("La Javanaise") and fellow-Belgian Jacques Brel ("La Chanson Des Vieux Amants") with great sympathy here.

Any vocalist who decides to perform Astor Piazzolla's "Libertango" invites comparison with Grace Jones' darkly erotic version of the song. Ducomble and guitarist Nicolas Meier's arrangement focuses on the drama and mystery of the song to create an original interpretation that complements Jones' own. Meier's guitar playing is exceptional, combining precision and drive to conjure up an air of tension that Chris Garrick takes further with his own powerful, almost threatening violin solo. Garrick's playing is also a highlight of "Mahna de Carnaval," but this time he picks up on the song's melancholy romance to create a beautiful solo filled with longing and regret. He creates a similar mood on "La Chanson des Vieux Amants," weaving in and out of Ducomble's emotive vocal. ~Bruce Lindsay

On the opening verse of "Spring is Here" Ducomble sounds rather nervous and hesitant, and the lyric loses impact as a result. It's oddly uncharacteristic and, given the strength of her vocals on most of the songs—especially "Libertango " and "That's All"—such a lack of confidence is also unexpected. On her own arrangement of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "It Might As Well Be Spring"—from the same '09 session that produced "Spring Is Here"—Ducomble's joyously bright vocal is given terrifically upbeat musical support by the band, with pianist Alex Hutton and trumpeter Andy Davies both contributing solos that perfectly complement the singer's optimism.

J'ai Deux Amours is a welcome debut from a new European jazz vocalist. Ducomble's voice has charm, and her willingness to go beyond the standard vocal repertoire is to be applauded.

Personnel: Gabrielle Ducomble: vocals; Alex Hutton: piano; Nicolas Meier: guitar; Nick Racal: double-bass; Saleem Raman: drums; Chris Garrick: violin; John Bailey: piano (1, 10, 11); Eric Ford: drums (2, 4, 7); Andy Davies: trumpet, flugelhorn (2, 4, 7); Nathan Mansfield: trumpet, flugelhorn (1, 5, 10).

J'ai Deux Amours

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Gabrielle Ducomble - Notes From Paris

Size: 137,8 MB
Time: 59:22
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2014
Styles: Jazz Vocals
Art: Front

01. La Vie En Rose (4:58)
02. Un Homme Et Une Femme (4:53)
03. Ces Petits Riens (5:24)
04. Padam Padam (5:13)
05. Que Feras-Tu De Ta Vie (6:09)
06. Je Ne Regrette Rien (5:58)
07. Sanfona (4:06)
08. Ne Me Quitte Pas (6:40)
09. Oblivion (5:43)
10. Que Reste-T-Il De Nos Amours (4:50)
11. Sous Le Ciel De Paris (5:24)

Personnel:
Gabrielle Ducomble - Vocals
Nicolas Meier - Nylon, Steel & Fretless Guitars
Dan Teper - Accordian & Piano on Tracks 2, 6
Nick Kacal - Double Bass
Saleem Raman - Drums & Bongos
Chris Garrick - Violin
Gilad Atzmon - Clarinet & Alto Saxophone
John Bailey - Piano on track 5

Belgian-born and London-trained singer Gabrielle Ducomble’s second album, Notes from Paris, offers a glowing and vigorous account of the French chanson, seasoned with touches of jazz and tango. As you would expect in a French singer featured in Jazz FM’s Valentine's Day playlist, she draws heavily on the traditionally romantic perception of an English-speaking audience to both French lyrics and French-accented English.

Ducomble has made her own arrangements of some of the most iconic chansons in the repertoire for this album. Her background combines popular acclaim (she first made her name as the winner of a TV talent show) and high-class training (at the Guildhall School of Music). Her voice is exquisitely groomed, sumptuously powerful and buttery, like a fine Meursault, though that very poise, control and strength is occasionally at odds with the character of the original song. The strength of the best chansons - certainly Piaf’s, and in many ways Brel’s too - lies in their combination of defiance and vulnerability, expressed in that unmistakably nasal, even whinnying resilience that’s on the edge of dissolving into sobs. Ducomble’s versions are, on the whole, too slick and confident for that: there’s a sense she’s cheerfully revealing all to a stadium of fans rather than disclosing intimate secrets.

It’s particularly apparent with the Piaf numbers. La Vie en Rose, the first track on the album, opens with a crackly, period sound, before Ducomble’s glossy tone bursts through, perhaps a little stridently, given the tenderness of the lyrics. Ducomble’s version of Je ne regrette rien, though a novel re-working, also obscures the desperation in the speaker’s defiance beneath a rather too-fluent self-confidence. However, her version of Brel’s Ne Me Quitte Pas is, for the most part, beautifully desolate, Chris Garrick’s spare violin opening setting the scene in evocative, vaguely Celtic colours.

There’s much to enjoy in the album’s band of expert jazzers. Ducomble’s arrangements use instrumental colours well, especially saxes (Gilad Atzmon), which varies from cute, piping alto to sensual, thrusting tenor, and accordion (Dan Teper), which displays everything from cafe-style coquette to rasping menace.

A note is usually a slight, personal document; Notes from Paris is too big and bold for that, but it’s a confident statement by a powerful and charismatic singer, who’s destined to establish herself as a performer of the jazz- and tango-tinged chanson. ~Review by Matthew Wright

Notes From Paris

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