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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'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." |
Halifax Chronicle-Herald
December 13, 1998Going heavy on the light jazz
By Stephen Pedersen| This short collection of six well-known Christmas tunes presented in Latin style makes you fell like the Girl from Ipanema just dropped down your chimney. The CD was released last year, following hard upon the first JazznSamba CD, Postcard. Unfortunately, it's distribution was curtailed by the postal strike. A national launch to give it the sendoff it deserves is now planned for Dec. 15 in the Toronto jazz club known as the Montreal Bistro. Originating from an inspired session of just fooling around with a few Christmas tunes when asked for seasonal songs during a Lunenburg pub gig, Christmas Card evolved from a just-kidding version dreamed up by Skip Beckwith of We Three Kings in five-four time (the original is in six-eight - don't do the math, just listen - it works). Next came a jazzy Jingle Bells, with tenor/soprano saxophonist Mike Murley coming out of the background where he had been playing fills and countermelodies, plunging down the musical slopes in a flying toboggan ride that puts the wind in your hair and fills your eyes with snow. Alas it's so short - but then so are most really good toboggan rides. | Kathie Claire Shaw has found a good voice for this repertoire. She sings with lightness and a teasing shake at the ends of phrases. Guitarist Paul, whose Brazilian experiences gave rise to the JazznSamba repertoire some three years or so ago, sometimes adds his pleasant baritone to Shaw's mezzo. Skip Beckwith anchors the trio which expands to include drums, sax, and a chorus of friends for Santa Claus is Coming To Town. Christmas Card is a charming addition to traditional seasonal pop music. The only carols are We Three Kings and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. For the rest, Let It Snow and Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas round out the repertoire and and CD ends with a JazznSamba original called The Best of Christmas. Nice. A mulled wine would be good about now. |
Toronto Star
December 13, 1997All that Christmas Jazz
By Geoff ChapmanJazz Critic
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By Christmas Day, you'll probably be jingle-belled out, overwhelmed by the torrent of holiday season music. Yet buried in the morass are some enterprising versions of traditional and sacred tunes that pass the acid test: You might still want to play them after Boxing Day. |
The Maritime group Jazznsamba offers Christmas Card (conveniently on the Jazznsamba label) a pleasing half-hour of just six songs from sweet-voiced Kathie Claire Shaw, with bassist Skip Beckwith, guitarist Paul and guest saxist Mike Murley. The combo wisely avoids sweetening already sentimental excesses. Traditional fare is better than Broadway syrup, while "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" becomes a startling romp. |
Halifax Daily News
Friday, December 12, 1997Jazz group revels in the holiday spirit
By Ron Foley MacDonald|
East Coast artists have produced a disproportionate number of excellent Christmas albums, from Rita MacNeil's moving Let The Bells Ring to the Rankin sisters' latest release. Perhaps the peace, joy and hospitality of the season is part-and-parcel of the year-round East Coast sensibility.
The South Shore Nova Scotia jazz trio jazznsamba has joined the Yuletide rush by putting out a fine six-song Christmas CD.
Jazznsamba's cool, coy sound is in full flight on Christmas Card. The six well-worn Christmas chestnuts — We Three Kings, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Let It Snow, Jingle Bells, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and Santa Claus is Coming to Town — are explored in unexpected ways. Melodies are playfully shifted; rhythmic emphasis slides around. The project sounds comfortably familiar and strangely unfamiliar — a next-to-impossible feat for a Christmas album. The trio — Kathie Claire Shaw on vocals, Skip Beckwith on bass and Paul on guitar — has been expanded to include saxman Mike Murley and drummer Anil Sharma. The group's sound is fuller and less intimate than on its previous release. Replacing an intense, internalized approach is an earthiness that can't help but exchange delicacy for a more rounded, flat-out approach. Santa Claus is Coming to Town, for example, is transformed into a jumpy call-and- response charmer with the crew shouting "Dig That Santa." Most of the record mines the rich vein of slow-groove samba jazz that gives the group its name. The album's opener, a medley of We Three Kings and God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen, uses Latin rhythms and striking Middle-Eastern harmonies. Shaw's sweet, sinuous come-hither voice floats along, intertwines with Paul's more straightforward vocals. |
Donat's nylon-stringed guitarwork meshes magnificently with Skip Beckwith's expert bass figures, providing a smooth and propulsive rhythmic drive. What distinguishes jazznsamba is the joy of the playing that informs every track. These musicians sound like they're having the time of their lives.
Shaw's singing, for example, on Sammy Cahn and Jules Styne's Let It Snow sounds impossibly self-satisfied. In a less talented troupe, the song would sound glib and campy. In jazznsamba's hands, the tune gurgles with happiness. When these merry jazzsters tackle Jingle Bells, the song trades its trademark tackiness for a breathless narrative style that reclaims the lyric's wackiness. Saxophonist Mike Murley shines, running commentaries off the extra verses and line breaks. The tune races along like an out-of- control sleigh, adding an extra level of interpretation to a song that has been considered a musical dead-end for several decades. Producer and recordists Bill Garrett, Skip Beckwith and David W. hillier have done a terrific job catching the group's organic energy while balancing the acoustic instruments. Shaw's voice is supported by the group's easy and engrossing rhythmic textures. Murley and Sharma are nicely mixed in to the already tightly recorded group; both are powerful instrumentalists who could easily upset the sonic apple cart. Even the packaging is an imaginative delight, with the CD itself providing a green and red holiday cover. |
