BABELFISH - Once Upon A Tide
Moletone 007
Brigitte Beraha: vocals; Barry Green: piano; Chris Laurence: double bass; Paul Clarvis: drums, percussion, singing bowl
Recorded 1st December 2018 by Andrew Tulloch at Livingston Studios, London.
There are some names that reassure you that you’ll be in safe hands with sharp and finely honed jazz playing; Green, Laurence and Clarvis are just such people on the UK jazz scene. The bass and drums provide sympathetic support, while continuing seeking space to bring their own tuneful commentary on the music as it unfolds. Green’s piano is crystal clear and imaginative, with runs that push the boundaries of bop without straying into the outer reaches of discordancy. All three swing like mad and create an ideal setting for Beraha. I was going to refer to the singer’s vocal gymnastics, but, perhaps, a bit analogy might be an aerialist or trapeze artist. Rather than vaulting around, her voice is carefully controlled and modulated, even when she is laughing at the end of the opening track, ‘The book of joy’, or making mouth clicks, suck and splutters on track 4, ‘Hobie’. Her vocalisations create atmospheric and emotionally intense aural patterns that span the emotions; even when she was laughing, there was always a hint of a sob in her voice. On a couple of tracks, Beraha dispenses with words entirely. She conveys tremendous emotional range in the vocalisations, and is a very accomplished interpreter on the nuances and subtleties in the lyrics (both her own and other peoples). As a singer she spans highly diverse genres and this was most clearly illustrated by the version of ‘Dido’s Lament’ (track 2), from Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, one of the earliest operas in English (and a tune that is played at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday). The words are sung in a style that mixes classical and jazz, with the piano producing delicate lines to accompany her. The other cover is the Duke Ellington / Billy Strayhorn song, ‘Pretty girl – the star-crossed lovers’ (track 9). The choice of an Ellington piece echoes Beraha’s earlier ‘Prelude to a kiss’ release.
The original songs are composed by either Beraha or Green. The quartet’s previous outing have been as interested in literature as music, and Green’s ‘City of glass’ (track 6) draws its words from the Paul Auster novella, while Beraha’s ‘The sea, the sea’ (track 7) takes inspiration from the Iris Murdoch novel. There isn’t a title track, as such, but the closing piece takes its words from a Max Jacob poem, ‘Vie et Maree’ (life and tide), and the play on the classic opening to a fairy tale that the group uses as the title of this set might have come from this.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Moletone 007
Brigitte Beraha: vocals; Barry Green: piano; Chris Laurence: double bass; Paul Clarvis: drums, percussion, singing bowl
Recorded 1st December 2018 by Andrew Tulloch at Livingston Studios, London.
There are some names that reassure you that you’ll be in safe hands with sharp and finely honed jazz playing; Green, Laurence and Clarvis are just such people on the UK jazz scene. The bass and drums provide sympathetic support, while continuing seeking space to bring their own tuneful commentary on the music as it unfolds. Green’s piano is crystal clear and imaginative, with runs that push the boundaries of bop without straying into the outer reaches of discordancy. All three swing like mad and create an ideal setting for Beraha. I was going to refer to the singer’s vocal gymnastics, but, perhaps, a bit analogy might be an aerialist or trapeze artist. Rather than vaulting around, her voice is carefully controlled and modulated, even when she is laughing at the end of the opening track, ‘The book of joy’, or making mouth clicks, suck and splutters on track 4, ‘Hobie’. Her vocalisations create atmospheric and emotionally intense aural patterns that span the emotions; even when she was laughing, there was always a hint of a sob in her voice. On a couple of tracks, Beraha dispenses with words entirely. She conveys tremendous emotional range in the vocalisations, and is a very accomplished interpreter on the nuances and subtleties in the lyrics (both her own and other peoples). As a singer she spans highly diverse genres and this was most clearly illustrated by the version of ‘Dido’s Lament’ (track 2), from Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, one of the earliest operas in English (and a tune that is played at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday). The words are sung in a style that mixes classical and jazz, with the piano producing delicate lines to accompany her. The other cover is the Duke Ellington / Billy Strayhorn song, ‘Pretty girl – the star-crossed lovers’ (track 9). The choice of an Ellington piece echoes Beraha’s earlier ‘Prelude to a kiss’ release.
The original songs are composed by either Beraha or Green. The quartet’s previous outing have been as interested in literature as music, and Green’s ‘City of glass’ (track 6) draws its words from the Paul Auster novella, while Beraha’s ‘The sea, the sea’ (track 7) takes inspiration from the Iris Murdoch novel. There isn’t a title track, as such, but the closing piece takes its words from a Max Jacob poem, ‘Vie et Maree’ (life and tide), and the play on the classic opening to a fairy tale that the group uses as the title of this set might have come from this.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
