Album Reviews

Well, is the uber-buzz justified? Fastest-selling debut album; Greatest band since the Beatles, number 287 in a series (collect ‘em all)?

Will there ever be another jazz singer with the elegance, clarity, and emotional depth of the late Shirley Horn? I don’t think so. Horn put more into, and got more out of her pauses than many singers get of the notes they actually sing. Her piano playing was equally sophisticated yet economical. Everyone from Joni Mitchell to Diana Krall has been influenced by Shirley Horn.

This five song 45rpm EP compiled for Mobile Fidelity by Thompson from his archive of live recordings includes “From Galway to Graceland” and “1952 Vincent Black Lightning,” recorded in 1994, “Oops! I Did It Again” and “It Won’t Be Long” from 2003, and a 1985 edition of “Shoot Out The Lights.”

Compilations are an ugly concept on vinyl. Either analog copy tapes have been strung together to create a cutting master or digital copies of masters are electronically assembled to produce the same cutting master. Once in a black and blue moon, original masters are removed from their reels and strung together to produce cutting masters made from original master tapes, but those are few and few between and almost impossible to make. They’re rare because few companies allow precious masters to be cut up and because unless the tunes were recorded in the same studio on the same impeccably maintained recorder, it’s very difficult if not impossible to cut a lacquer where the record/playback head’s azimuth changes from track to track.

One can imagine Chan Marshall sitting herself down in a darkened, candle-lit Ardent Studios in Memphis, singing these melancholic songs in late night sessions stretching until dawn.

The time between receiving this and finally writing about it is ludicrous. I’m almost embarrassed to post this in March of 2006. It’s been covered more extensively than most new jazz albums and I wouldn’t be surprised if it outsold most of them as well. On the other hand this music hasn’t been heard in almost 50 years, so what’s a more few months?

You’ll just have to get over the squashed, harmonically truncated and bleached sound that infects much of this musically outstanding album from 2002 (they’ve released more albums since) from this 15 member Canadian collective if you have any hope of enjoying it.