Sarah Moule - A Lazy Kind Of Love (2008)

This is my third CD, the first two (It's A NIce Thought and Something's Gotta Give) having been released on Linn Records. But what with building our own studio and all we decided to put this one out ourselves. It's mainly Landesman & Wallace songs, but with a lyric contributed by Julie Burchill, a song from the Clive James/Pete Atkin canon, something by the maverick Joe Henry, and two jazz classics from Styne/Cahn and Dorough/Kirk. Together with my regular (but irregularly splendid) trio, Simon Wallace piano and Hammond, Mark Hodgson bass, Paul Robinson drums, we had some stellar guests - Alan Barnes on tenor sax, Alec Dankworth guesting on bass for a couple of numbers, Clive Bell on shakuhachi, Paul Clarvis on percussion, and Mike Outram on guitar. Simon produced and arranged as well as writing 10 of the tunes. ~SM
Not sure that Ms Moule's CD is a jazz album at all, for although the band boasts top guns like Alan Barnes and Mike Outram as well as occasional haunting colours from Clive Bell's shakuhachi, they are all deployed completely in the service of the songs by MD, pianist and organ player Simon Wallace, an absolute master of his craft. He can turn in those storytelling piano solos as well, check 'Remind Me'. Most of the material is from the growing canon of work by Wallace himself and that brilliantly sharp lyricist Fran Landesman, who specialises in wryly humorous appraisals of love and a certain kind of metropolitan angst - searching for chemical comfort, wondering why we're depressed - which peaks on the insinuatingly catchy 'Living In Overdrive'. Moule can actually strut, but you have to wait until track 10, Bob Dorough's 'Devil May Care' (boasting an insanely good bass solo from Alec Dankworth), for her to show it. So for once just forget about looking for jazz thrills and let the verbal intelligence, original tunes that you can actually remember and Sarah Moule's truly outstanding voice get under your skin. They certainly did mine.(Brian Blain)