Patrice Jégou - If It Ain't Love

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2019
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 66:51
Size: 154,7 MB
Art: Front

(3:19)  1. Lover Come Back to Me (A Cappella)
(2:40)  2. Jersey Bounce
(4:46)  3. Baubles, Bangles, And Beads
(5:08)  4. Yes We Can, Can
(5:34)  5. I'm So Glad I'm Standing Here Today
(4:05)  6. Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams
(3:14)  7. If It Ain't Love
(4:42)  8. Estate (Summer)
(3:24)  9. Lover Come Back to Me
(3:40) 10. Waltz for Debby
(4:42) 11. Losing You
(3:04) 12. Just Squeeze Me
(3:53) 13. Where Do You Start?
(5:00) 14. Remembrances (In Memory of Stan Getz)
(4:25) 15. Please Send Me Someone to Love
(5:08) 16. It Might Be You

Listening to Canadian vocal artist Patrice Jégou's second album, If It Ain't Love, one would never think that she once was a world-class professional figure skater. One would also immediately discern that she and her similarly world-class musical partners have delivered a perfect-10 performance. Surrounded on the opener by Take 6's Mark Kibble and Alvin Chea, Jégou and the "sextet" burn a capella through a terrific send up of "Lover Come Back to Me." Backed by the swinging Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra and a fine Count Basie-like arrangement by John Clayton, Jégou covers the old Benny Goodman horse, "Jersey Bounce" with flair. Things soften with a gorgeously lush rendition of "Baubles, Bangles and Beads" with Maestro Jorge Calandrelli's strings caressing Jégeou's vocal silk. The tone grows funk-gospel gumbo on Allen Toussaint's "Yes We Can, Can" (with Tata Vega joining Jégou) and followed by the highly inspirational "I'm So Glad I'm Standing Here Today." Jégou and her friends soar celestial on both cuts. Across the session, Ms. Jégou demonstrates that she has very strong vocal chops, graceful lyric sensitivity, ace pitch and a killer groove feel. She works extremely well with all the various ensembles large, small and a capella.

That's the sign of a very talented artist. She's got the chops and the breadth to belt out Big Band swinging behind the Clayton-Hamilton unit ("If It Ain't Love," "Just Squeeze Me," "Please Send Me Someone to Love") or to go romantically seductive ("Estate" and "Remembrances"). She's a capella bella on "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams"" and swings tail on a second send-up of of "Lover Come Back to Me" (both of these with the entire, Grammy-heavy Take 6 crew). Her performance of Bill Evans' classic, "Waltz for Debby" is dynamically dynamic and her take on Randy Newman's country-esque "Losing You" is sentimental, not saccharine. "Where Do You Start" is a Jégou-Calandrelli vocal gem that's as wonderful as Barbra Streisand's celebrated version (which was also done by Maestro Calandrelli). Stephen Bishop's "It Might Be You" from Tootsie (Warner Bros., 1983) is Jégou being pop pure that wraps a fine ribbon around the fifteen prior goodies. Kudos are due to the all-star cast of performers and arrangers, including Jorge Calandrelli, John Clayton, Mark Kibble, Mike Lang and David Paich. The production values all around are impeccable, as one would expect from Jégou and her entire star-quality family. It certainly is to our benefit that Patrice Jégou gave up skates for song. She is a very gifted and versatile talent and it's all here to relish. To paraphrase an old Tennessee Ernie Ford '50s pop tune: "You hear sixteen tunes and what do you get?" in the case of If It Ain't Love, possibly a small golden Gramophone. ~ Nicholas F.Mondello https://www.allaboutjazz.com/if-it-aint-love-patrice-jegou-prairie-star-review-by-nicholas-f-mondello.php

Personnel: Patrice Jegou: vocals; Mark Kibble: vocals (1, 8, 9), percussion (9); Alvin Chea: vocals (1); Take 6: vocals (6) ; The Clayton-Hamilton Orchestra (2, 7, 12, 15); Gilbert Castellanos: trumpet (2); Mike Lang: piano (3, 5, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16) Rhodes (4,14), Ramon Stagnaro: guitar (3, 13,), acoustic guitar (14); Kevin Axt: bass (3, 5, 8, 13); Ray Brinker: drums (3, 13); Luis Conte (3, 13): Percussion (3); David Lang: Wurlitzer (4); David Paich: Hammond B-3, piano (4); Dean Parks: guitar (4); Abraham Laboirel, Sr.: bass (4, 14); Steve Ferrone: drums (4, 14); Lenny Castro: percussion (4, 14); Tom Scott: tenor saxophone (3); Choir (4, 5): Bill Cantos (4), Kurt Lykes, Jamie McCrary, Jason Morales, Melodye Perry, Alfie Silas. Tiffany Smith, Tata Vega; Larry Koonse: acoustic guitar (5, 8), guitar (14); Michael Thompson: electric guitar (5, 8); John "J.R." Robinson: drums (5, 8); Yaron Gershovsky: piano (9), Boris Kozlov: bass (9); Cliff Almond: drums (9); Steve Patrick, Mike Barry: trumpets (9); Doug Moffet: tenor and baritone saxophone (9); Sam Levine: alto saxophone (9); Roy Agee: trombone (9); Greg Phillinganes: keyboards(16).

If It Ain't Love

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Patrice Jégou - Speak Low

Styles: Vocal Jazz
Year: 2014
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 68:30
Size: 158,7 MB
Art: Front

(5:58)  1. Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else but Me)
(3:19)  2. What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?
(2:35)  3. From This Moment On
(4:54)  4. Everyday (I Have the Blues)
(4:04)  5. I've Got the Sun in the Morning
(4:41)  6. What a Difference a Day Made
(6:28)  7. Lullaby of the Leaves
(5:06)  8. Down By the Salley Gardens
(4:49)  9. Speak Low
(5:38) 10. This Little Light of Mine
(4:06) 11. Nino Precioso
(4:07) 12. The Summer Knows
(3:53) 13. Walking After Midnight
(4:02) 14. Til There Was You
(4:41) 15. The Summer Knows (Bonus Track)

Remember the first time you heard Streisand or Renée Fleming, Celine Dion or Adele? Yes, the voice was arrestingly beautiful, but there was more: a distinctiveness that made that moment of discovery uniquely thrilling. Each is blessed with “that little something extra,” as James Mason so aptly described it to Judy Garland in A Star Is Born, that signifies true star quality.  Hit “play” on track one of Speak Low, the debut release from classically-trained mezzo-soprano Patrice Jégou, and you immediately feel that same effect; that ineffable je ne sais quoi that separates the great from the merely good. Across 15 wide-ranging tracks, spanning Broadway, Tin Pan Alley, Nashville and beyond, and blurring jazz, pop, classical, country and gospel, Jégou is assisted by an all-star assortment of musicians, including 10-time Grammy winning vocal jazz group Take 6, gospel superstar Andraé Crouch and the Andraé Crouch Singers, saxophonist extraordinaire Kirk Whalum, bass legend Victor Wooten, guitar luminary Paul Jackson Jr., Grammy-winning trombonist Conrad Herwig, and a host of others. 

Production credits include Mark Kibble of Take 6 and Cheryl Bentyne from The Manhattan Transfer. The story of Jégou’s serpentine career path, including the evolution of Speak Low, is as compelling as the album itself. Born in Canada, Jégou grew up in a house filled with music her mother was an accomplished guitarist, keyboardist and vocalist. At her parents’ insistence, she begrudgingly took piano lessons, but was much more interested in sports. A natural athlete, she excelled at baseball, volleyball and particularly figure skating. Eager to expand her horizons, Jégou began skating professionally, coaching in New Zealand, Canada, and the United States, and touring Mexico with an ice show. But at age 23 she decided to hang up her skates. The show she was appearing in had reached Monterrey, Mexico and there was a cast change. Among the newcomers was a fellow from Vancouver with an impressive background in musical theater. One day, while the cast was fooling around during intermission, singing various tunes, he took special note of Jégou’s beautiful voice and urged her to take singing lessons. Intrigued, Jégou returned to Canada and sought out a prominent local voice teacher and also enrolled at Red Deer College, where she joined the jazz choir. 

From there, she progressed to the music program at the University of Calgary. Perhaps the first confirmation of Jégou’s extraordinary vocal talent came two years into her studies, when she auditioned for a soloist role with the Calgary Philharmonic under the direction of Maestro Hans Graf. Midway through her audition, Graf stood up, dashed down the aisle, ran up on stage and said, “You’re so good! Sing it again!” A short time later Jégou moved to Nashville for graduate studies at Belmont University, acquiring her Master of Music degree in classical vocal performance. She continued her studies at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University where, in 2011, she obtained her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in classical vocal performance. In the summer of 2005, prior to relocating to New Jersey to attend Rutgers University, Jégou entered and won a prestigious international singing competition in Peru. Settled in New Jersey, now studying for her doctorate, she met and married Yinka Oyelese, an accomplished physician, whose own musical background includes membership in an immensely popular a cappella vocal group in his native Nigeria. 

The spark for what would eventually become Speak Low, executive produced by Oyelese, was ignited not long after their wedding, when, in 2008, Jégou returned to the Peru competition to serve as an adjudicator. While there, she was asked to give a master class and a recital. Working alongside a Costa Rican pianist, she remembers singing “a Schubert set, a Debussy set and a Swedish song. But I thought I should also include something a little more popular, so I prepared ‘Till There Was You’ from The Music Man, and did it as an encore. Well, the audience applause was so enthusiastic that the pianist leaned over and whispered to me, ‘Do you have another song?’ I whispered back, ‘no,” and he said, ‘well you’ll have to sing it again,’ which I did!”

A short while later, a retirement party was being planned for Jégou and Oyelese’s church minister and she was asked to sing. Again she chose “Till There Was You,” and again the reaction was extraordinary. “People were cheering and crying and were so excited by the song,” she recalls, “that Yinka turned to me and said, ‘you know, honey, I think you should record a non-classical album.’” And so, Speak Low was conceptualized. With nostalgic arrangements reminiscent of a bygone era, Speak Low features lush orchestral accompaniments, a sizzling Big Band, the harmonic virtuosity of Take 6, latin guitar, and an amazing gospel choir. Jégou is one of a very few that can masterfully handle jazz, blues, gospel, folk songs, and classical music with equal skill and virtuosity. Her epic vocals, outstanding musicianship, and stylish song interpretations have been compared to great vocalists like Diana Krall, kd lang, Barbra Streisand, and Dianne Schuur.  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/patricejegou3

Speak Low

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