Liane Carroll - Up and Down

Scat and Sax

New to me but not those in the jazz-know, British singer and pianist Liane Carroll is a brilliant find. Her 2011 album Up and Down is essentially a set of standards, though also including Tom Waits’ Take Me Home [Mark Bassey cool on trombone] and Laura Nyro’s Buy and Sell, and her husky full vocal is dynamite, but also subtle for example on closer, Michael McDonald’s I Can Let Go Now. She is ably supported by the likes of Kenny Wheeler on flugelhorn [who I have been listening to only yesterday on the 1969 Curried Jazz MFP album by the Indo British Ensemble] and saxophonists Kirk Whalum and Julian Siegel. There is some fine sassy scat and sax [KW] on third Moanin’.

I am looking forward to hearing her more recent release Ballads, and I am also hoping that these are stripped back to just vocal and piano as on the many clips of Carroll on YouTube. I thoroughly recommend going to these and just clicking through all those with her at what seems like home, quite casually, but impressively, singing at the piano. So simple and so superb.