Libby
York, like the very best of interpretive singers, has the gift of transforming
a song into a personal anthem. On her new album, Memoir (March 24, 2014, Libby York Music), she
probes the lyrical content of a work to uncover inner connections to her own
experience and state of being, finding individual relevance in a wide swath of
standards she first heard on her parents' '78's from iconic composers including
Cole Porter and George Gershwin to present day songsmith Donald Fagen. Her
"memoir " may be fashioned from the pens of others, but the
expressive fervor and creative brio is York's alone.
Applying
this uncanny ability to bond with a song to celebrated vocal skills highlighted
by a honeyed tone, light-as-a cloud swing and insightful phrasing, York
delivers a masterwork that renews the life of familiar classics ("Thanks
for the Memory," "Slow Boat To China," "I Was Doing
Alright" and "How Long Has This Been Going On" and "Let's
Call the Whole Thing Off," among them) and alerts us to lesser known gems
("My Little Boat," "Put It There, Pal," "When In
Rome" and Fagen's "Walk Between the Raindrops"). What Memoir may
best display is the intimacy that can be palpably felt when a singer becomes
one with a song. "You have to believe the lyric, " York states,
"You have to be present in the story of the song."
While
York's vocal skills are emphatically the main event, Memoir takes a page from
the celebrated late period projects of Rosemary Clooney by placing York at the
helm of a tight small jazz band stocked with A-list players. With cornetist
Warren Vache (an integral Clooney collaborator, also featured on York's 2008
album, Here with You), pianist John DiMartino, guitarist Russell Malone,
bassist Martin Wind and drummer Greg Sergo, York is among guaranteed purveyors
of swing, musicians who virtually read her mind as she artfully navigates a
tune. "I think of myself as a member of the band," Yorks says,"
I love listening to them play; the caliber of their musicianship is
staggering."
York's
further respect for her collaborators is evident in the spacious solo statements
and featured roles that she offers. Vache's full-throated yet eminently lyrical
horn lines enliven the majority of the songs, while DiMartino consistently
cloaks York's vocals in just-right chords like a musical second shadow. Wind
and Sergo meld, as the most buoyant of rhythm teams must; featured on three
tracks, Malone (who wisely suggested "When In Rome" to York) offers
the tasty guitar work that York fans, familiar with Malone's fine playing on
Here with You, have come to expect of his contributions.
For
sheer mirth though, nothing tops the vocal duets between York and Vache on
"Put It There, Pal," the old Bob Hope and Bing Crosby zing fest, and
"Let's Call the Whole Thing Off," the witty display of verbal
disparity by the brothers Gershwin. York says "Put It There, Pal," on
which she and Vache toss some good-natured low blows at each other, as
"the most fun I've ever had in a recording studio" and you believe
her. Performances such as these remind us that a sense of humor - along with
the complimentary ability to infuse a lyric with cheer and to never oversell a
witticism -- is among the most highly prized of gifts that a superior vocalist
can possess.
Memoir
also refers to York's wistful, but emphatically non-nostalgic, reflections on
the music she grew up with, songs that she has now artfully rejuvenated.
Although York has been performing jazz since 1980, her recording career did not
come about overnight. She left Chicago in the early 70s to major in political
science at American University in Washington, DC and opened a restaurant in
Rehoboth Beach, Delaware in 1974. She spent most of the 80s and early 90s in
New York where she was coached by, among others, Abbey Lincoln, who
"taught me about the truth and soul of a song," and collaborated with
pianist Renee Rosnes. She currently
spends her time in Chicago, New York, Paris and Key West.
1998 saw
the release of York's debut album, Blue Gardenia, followed, in 2004, by her
breakthrough recording, Sunday in New York, which featured Renee Rosnes on
piano and Count Basie alumni Frank Wess on tenor sax. The album received an abundance of rave
reviews including 4 stars in DownBeat magazine. York's third CD, 2008's Here
With You -- with Russell Malone, Howard Alden, Warren Vache, Jon Burr and
Vanderlei Pereira -- earned further acclaim, including praise from New York
Times critic Nate Chinen who wrote: "Ms. York is a jazz singer of cool
composure and artful subtlety, as she demonstrates on her fine new album, Here
With You.
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