Caro Josée - Summer's Ease (2016) [Hi-Res]

2012 marked the end of a recording pause for Caro Josee. After several years away from the industry, her reappearance with the appropriately titled “Turning Point” convinced her listening audience and surprised the media. The album presented songs with substance taken from the world of a woman in the midst of life. Expressive sounds reflecting her strength, maturity and self-assurance put the icing on the cake. The reward for a work deeply rooted in Gypsy Jazz was an ECHO JAZZ award for “Vocalist of the Year, National”.

Now, three years later after extensive concert appearances, she is ‘back with a vengeance’: bursting with moods and stylish elegance. “Summer’s Ease stands for an attitude toward life because the stories I tell are mainly set in warmer regions. Whether Ibiza, Laguna Beach, Liguria or the Cote d’Azur, all of them are part of my life. These are the spots where I replenish energy, and with Summer’s Ease I take all the listeners along on my musical journey”, the ECHO award-winner promises. “Summer’s Ease” breathes Easy Listening and Jazz while showcasing Caro Josee as a modern songwriter and vocalist with originality to spare. She hisses and whispers, surfs velvety-smooth on melancholy reminiscences (as on “Mr. Django”), then wonderfully phrases her way across the world, light as a feather. An album of quotes and comments, at times tongue-in-cheek, other times almost in the mood of a black & white film from the ’50s. Tango themes are set against sounds that parody the US crime series from the ’70s (as on “Louboutins”, the classic à la Leiber-Stoller), but always featuring musical breaking points that reroot the work in 2016. Washed pure and clean on “Rain Down”, a central piece toward the end of the album, Caro Josee lets her personality’s authenticity rule before she elatedly soars off into the night on “Marguerite”, the closing track. “Summer’s Ease” is like no other album, with all the makings of the soundtrack to a coming spring. Nothing ‘off-the-rack’, more an ingenious synthesis concealed behind seeming simplicity. Oblivious to prepackaged categories and a source of ample light on the uniqueness that is Caro Josee.

In Patrick Pagels she has found a congenial partner on “Summers’s Ease” who co-wrote a major portion of the songs with her. As producer he is equally responsible for the rich sphere of sounds that make the music so distinctive. In that same vein, it nearly becomes a peripheral issue that the colorfully varied guitars heard on the album are predominantly played in sovereign style by that very same man: Patrick Pagels.

Tracklist:
01. Caro Josée - Cocomo (4:50)
02. Caro Josée - In Distress (2:27)
03. Caro Josée - All Forgotten Dreams (2:41)
04. Caro Josée - Mr. Django (4:34)
05. Caro Josée - If There's a Heaven (2:43)
06. Caro Josée - Isfahan (5:38)
07. Caro Josée - Like a Cha Cha (4:52)
08. Caro Josée - Louboutins (3:11)
09. Caro Josée - On the Sunny Side (2:19)
10. Caro Josée - Girl from Vietnam (4:41)
11. Caro Josée - Rain Down (5:15)
12. Caro Josée - Marguerite (3:31)