Artist: Janette Mason

Date of Release: 26/01/2009

Catalogue no: 1481

Label: Fireball Records

Price: £6.99

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Track Listing

‘Alien left Hand Syndrome’ Janette Masons's eagerly awaited follow up album, features six original compositions, from the high-energy title track set around a bass ostinato to the hauntingly beautiful ballad ‘Mae’s Song’. Highlighted by exquisite arrangements, the two covers of the Eurhythmics ‘Sweet Dreams’ and the Bernstein’s classic, ‘Some Other Time’, show Janette’s wild imagination and polished piano skills at their best.

Guesting on the album are long-term collaborators, vocalist Lea DeLaria, saxophonist Julian Siegel and up and coming trumpeter Tom Arthurs.

Reviews

23/01/2009 John Fordham

4/5

Janette Mason is a session, studio and movie-score pianist, and one of the best. But she's also a jazz musician in every fibre, just like her close associate, the Anglophile American singer Lea Delaria. Mason came out of the session shadows in 2005 with her fine Din and Tonic album, and Alien Left Hand develops that set's cross-genre vision, infectious grooving, clever composing and audacious improvisation. Her powerful band includes saxophonist Julian Siegel and trumpeter Tom Arthurs, with Delaria on occasional vocals. On opener Four Wheel Drive, Mason's baroque piano line becomes increasingly funky against Josh Giunta's drumming, while The Blues Walked Out mixes assymmetrical rhythms, acoustic and organ sounds, and then driving, straightahead swing. A thrillingly arranged account of Eurhythmics' Sweet Dreams, two diaphanous ballads (Mae's Song, for Mason's late mother, and a Jarrettish approach to Leonard Bernstein's Some Other Time), some flying bebop (NY Cab Ride) and an equally breathless title track, over a racing left-hand ostinato, confirm the impression that the gifted Mason has done it again.