Artist: Anita Wardell

Date of Release: 01/08/2006

Catalogue no: 977

Label: Specific

Price: £12

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Track Listing

Anita Wardell voice
Robin Aspland, piano
Jeremy Brown, bass
Steve Bown, drums

Reviews

04/08/2006 John Fordham, The Guardian 3 stars

Anita Wardell is an Australia-raised, UK-resident bebop singer who has been consolidating her craft since the mid-90s; she operates with a mixture of uncalculating charm, accuracy on the most devious of materials, and emotional breadth. Jazz vocal legend Mark Murphy says of Wardell: "Her bop singing, always so clear and accurate in its linearism, is even lovelier now, but what hits me is how expressive her ballad singing now is." Those judgments are supported by the music on this fine set, with a languorous band, including saxophonist Alex Garnett and pianist Robin Aspland. Wardell shows how far the overworked art of mainstream jazz vocals can still go, with fresh interpretations of Blue Note-era classics such as Moanin' and The Sidewinder, Horace Silver's Lonely Woman, Herbie Hancock's Watermelon Man and a lot more. She makes arresting falsetto departures in Moanin', develops a pensive Autumn Leaves as a double-time sax-like adventure, reins back the pathos on Lonely Woman and sounds like a gracefully glissando-gliding Mose Allison - if such a thing is possible - on And What If I Don't.