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The sound on jazznsamba's new release, Postcard, is amazing. It's not just the expected clarity and sheen of a finely engineered CD. It's unusually pristine, astonishingly intimate, an acoustic environment as infinite as deep space, in which Kathie Claire Shaw's voice, Paul's guitar and Skip Beckwith's bass glow with the brightness of heavenly bodies.
"We were in three separate rooms during the recording," says Shaw. "The earphones we were using were so high tech you could almost hear people thinking." Postcard will be released tonight Backstage next to the Economy Shoe Shop starting at 7 pm. What makes the amazing sound even more amazing is that the CD is a home-made recording. Beckwith and Shaw had moved from Antigonish nearly two years ago after buying a house on a hill in Blockhouse, just outside of Mahone Bay. "We found the ambient sound in the house really conducive to acoustic instruments," Beckwith says. A demo tape they made sounded so good they decided to make the CD themselves - with a little help from their friends. Barra MacNeils recording engineer Al Strickland was recommended to them by Sheumas MacNeil. Beckwith says Strickland was skeptical when he first heard the trio's plan to record in their house. Then he listened to the demo and agreed to do it. "He showed up with incredible equipment - head phones, high quality mikes - in a room with a great sound, that's all you need," Beckwith says. "He had a real sense of what we wanted to do." Recording at home in the country has its hazards, however. "We were all set," Beckwith says of the first session. "There was tape in the machine, everybody was ready, the sound-check sounded like heaven - and then the lights go out! Some person ran a car into a power pole in Upper Cornwall." |
Everybody had to go home while Shaw and Beckwith, in candlelight, sipping Boddington's Ale, thought of a way to improve a tune they hadn't been totally comfortable with.
Everything else went really well. Mike Marley plays sax on the recording, Anil Sharma drums, and Tom Roach adds a dusting of percussion from track to track. At times as many as five separate rooms were used, the musicians out of sight of each other, keeping track through the headphones. Whatever happened, it all happened right for jazznsamba. Postcard is a brilliant piece of work. Shaw has never sounded better. Her voice is mixed right up front where it sounds like it's coming from somewhere inside your head. She sings like she had total confidence in the microphone - softly, unforced, intimate, sweetly but with a bit of a bite like a taste of lemon sherbet. Donat's guitar-playing is superbly stylistic on these bossa nova tunes. He also sings in a soft voice that recalls Jobim, and his tunes are well-crafted and lightly swinging. Beckwith plays bass on some tunes, piano on others (Paul switches to bass on these), and the idea of adding Murley was a stroke of genius. This is Murley as Mozart, dusting each tune with a savory seasoning of just the right notes, no more, no less, his accompaniments and solos lean, light, beautifully poised and idiomatic. Sharma's delicacy and taste on traps and cymbals add the final touch of finish to this extremely beautiful CD. |
Halifax Daily News
November 8, 1996
By Ron Foley MacDonald
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"...Jazznsamba's new album Postcard (Independent) ...does contain unexpected low-key pleasures. Bassist Skip Beckwith, guitarist Paul and vocalist Kathie Claire Shaw gathered a few friends, including Mike Murley, percussionist Tom Roach, and drummer Anil Sharma, to cut a blend of 14 cool classics and originals.
Shaw's Julie London-like, come-hither vocals front the trio's relaxed sound. True to the group's name, samba and other rhythmic jazz/pop forms drive much of the music. Two of the selections are straight from the songbook of Antonio Carlos Jobim (the man responsible for The Girl From Ipanema). Highlights include Blossom Dearie's intriguing Hey John, Richard Rodger's Loads of Love, and Paul Donat's sprightly original Breakfast Samba. |
Fans of the recent "lounge" music revival can avoid the unpleasant, satiric edge that infects much of that often mistakenly campy scene by indulging in Jazznsamba. By blurring the edges of pop and jazz, the group's loose, living-room improvisations will attract neophyte listeners while coyly delivering the goods to hard-core jazz fans." |
