Gemma Sherry - Songs I Love

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2019
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 56:48
Size: 131,8 MB
Art: Front

(4:51) 1. Some Other Time
(4:20) 2. You Don't Know What Love Is
(3:10) 3. I Fall in Love Too Easily
(3:37) 4. Satin Doll
(3:11) 5. Here's That Rainy Day
(5:39) 6. Lush Life
(6:08) 7. Spring Can Really Hang You up the Most
(5:11) 8. When Sunny Gets Blue
(3:56) 9. Blame It on My Youth
(3:23) 10. Peace
(3:39) 11. You Go to My Head
(5:19) 12. Round Midnight
(4:18) 13. Save Your Love for Me

Is it remotely possible that we need yet one more collection of standards from the Great American Songbook? Are computer servers not clotted to the point of infarction with the detritus of recordings by everyone who thinks he or she is a jazz singer? But here is a recording that reminds us why a collection of old songs, performed true to the melody, is so important to American music and her sacred Songbook. Gemma Sherry's Songs I Love is such a recording. With a bell-like coquettish, yet wholesomely scrubbed clarity, Sherry polishes the best that Tin Pan Alley has to offer, returning it as an integrated collection and informative whole. For this recording, Sherry is backed by the rhythm section of pianist Billy Woodman and bassist Mike Waite, the two sharing a solid musical empathy. They are in the mix, neck-and-neck, just behind Sherry. It is a warm and comfortable setup.

Hailing from Down Under and presently calling Philadelphia, PA home, Sherry approaches her performance with a refined understatement that translates into a true affinity for melody and the composers' intentions. Her recital of this baker's dozen standards is similarly fashioned. What is not here? Gratefully, "My Funny Valentine," "Feelings" and "The Man I Love." What is here orbits "love" in all of its grandeur, excitement, misery and longing. The enduring loss of "Some Other Time" with the optimism of "Satin Doll," the bookend double-barrel schizophrenia of "You Don't Know What Love Is" with "I Fall in Love Too Easily," and the perfectly in tune triptych of "Here's That Rainy Day," "Lush Life" and "Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most" all act as miniature suites highlighting the challenge and triumph of love. But Sherry does not stop there. She is in cahoots with Woodman, who has arranged all of the material simply and with grace. These are head arrangements that feature the familiar introduction-vocals-piano solo-vocals-coda format. All effort is saved to the melodies as conceived by their composers and words, their lyricists. It is bliss. The disc ends with another triptych made up of "You Go to My Head," "'Round Midnight" and "Save Your Love for Me." It is the lifespan of love: heady excitement, heartbreak and memory, prayer for reconciliation.~C.Michael Bailey https://www.allaboutjazz.com/songs-i-love-gemma-sherry-tunley-records

Personnel: Gemma Sherry: voice / vocals; Billy Woodman: piano; Mike Waite: bass; Patsy Gamble: saxophone.

Songs I Love

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Gemma Sherry - Let's get serious

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2020
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 44:31
Size: 105,2 MB
Art: Front

(3:23) 1. Blossom's blues
(3:16) 2. Give me the simple life
(3:05) 3. Too much in love to care
(5:38) 4. Try your wings
(3:21) 5. The alley cat song
(5:16) 6. The gentleman is a dope
(4:06) 7. Why don't you do right
(5:10) 8. Whatever Lola wants
(3:09) 9. Straighten up and fly right
(4:42) 10. Go away little boy
(3:20) 11. The doodlin song

A perfect response to challenge and change. In the parlance of the agrarian American South, Gemma Sherry is "makin' hay while the sun shines. Let's Get Serious is the singer's light-as-air, coquettishly coy wink at the COVID-19 pandemic a wink as opposed to any other response, as Sherry is a true Lady. The title of her third full-length (in 2020 alone) recording is deliciously ironic as the tone is anything but. Globally, this release is best defined in the Nat King Cole classic "Straighten Up and Fly Right:" light, sophisticated, ready-made for entertainment and consideration. Sherry showed up in 2020 with Songs I Love (Tunley Records), a collection of carefully selected standards that define exactly Sherry's musical inspirations. Sherry exposes her heart from the beginning with songs clearly important to her. The singer follows this debut with the surprise Gemma Sherry Sings Bossa Nova (Tunley Records, 2020), singing these Brazilian classics with a pristine voice. Sherry has two great artistic advantages: a perfect ear for melody and a voice so clearly realized and experienced that she could sing a telephone book, should one exist anymore. In that metaphor, her repertoire is derived from a similar, simpler time when martinis were served dry, asked for or not. She encompasses classic beauty and urbanity. This is Mad Men music, has the series been more light-hearted.

Sherry expands her band stable with names new to her but not at large. Guitarist Paul Bollenbeck, pianist Rick Germanson, drummer George Coleman, and bassist Eric Wheeler. Wanting to select from lesser covered songs, the singer, nevertheless, plants some well-known ringers. Devoting much of the recording to songs like "The Alley Cat Song," "Try Your Wings," and "Doodlin' Song" and other tunes enjoying only sparse attendings over the last 50 years, Sherry includes "Give Me The Simple Life" and "Straighten Up and Fly Right" as proof of her grounding. She surprises with an innocently flirtatious performance of the Carole King-Gerry Goffin "Go Away Little Boy." The singer closes things with "The Doodling Song," featuring vibraphonist Joseph Doubleday, sung with coquettish delight. Let's Get Serious is Gemma Sherry's artistic gift to a worn world, one with hope and grace built in, so we remember what to expect on the other side of challenge.~C.Michael Bailey https://www.allaboutjazz.com/lets-get-serious-gemma-sherry-tunley-records

Personnel: Gemma Sherry: voice / vocals; Paul Bollenback: guitar; Rick Germanson: piano; Eric Wheeler: bass; George Coleman Jr.: drums; Joseph Doubleday: vibraphone.

Let's get serious

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