Rachel Caswell - All I Know (2015)

Well if it isn’t one Caswell; this one is Rachel, a vocalist with few peers in the timbral voice that ascends the heavens in the first blush of amaryllis and with waif-like beauty. If you’ve already heard the violinist Sara Caswell in several ensembles, but not Rachel, imagine the soaring beauty of the violin transposed to Rachel Caswell’s voice. There is a certain creaminess here and an angelic soaring into a rarefied realm. As an actress she is compelling. The characters that she plays in her songs come to life with every human frailty so as to be unabashedly real. And there is something of a reaching out to lover’s arms, even to the divine with plaint lyricism. She is the eyes of the heart and she wears this special trait with an attractive soft-focus quality.

Rachel Caswell amaThe small-scale forces used here 0 a solo voice that plays against the bare minimum of just a guitar, or a bass violin help to keep the music light on its feet and allow for clarity of texture and beauty of line. And this is wonderfully captured in the warmth of the studio acoustic. These are intimate vocalastics, not given to huge drama or massive presence and one in which the most striking gesture is like a simple amen at the end of a cheerfully moving “Feelin’ Groovy” or a melancholic “If I should Lose You” take it in the direction of inner calm. The illuminating contrast of the two moods and moments enable us to feel the immense beauty of Ms. Caswell’s voice as he sings or scats in a manner that Sheila Jordan might have had her do. Whichever way she decides to take her exquisite voice it sounds simple, nude and spectacular. The disposition and manipulation of musical forces is intricate and supple; a solo voice working in juxtaposition with a solitary guitar or a bass; a vocal expedition so superb that it made me catch my breath time and time again. Such vocal dexterity is truly astonishing and well worth exploring.

There is plenty of opportunity to do so on this album, “All I Know: Duets with Dave Stryker & Jeremy Allen”. The twelve songs make up a set that test every technical faculty; challenges every vocal chord in Ms. Caswell’s slender throat. And she makes it through with such utter beauty that she not only seals your very breath but your heart as well. This is vintage vocalising, making the partnership that She shares with each of her instrumental partners something almost spiritually gorgeous. These duets do what the best of them do best; retain a freshness and questing spirit, which sometimes eludes many such partnerships. You get an immediate sense of joyous music-making that has marked out these musicians from the start and which they have never lost. And this joy is utterly infectious on the listener.~ By Raul Da Gama

Personnel:
Rachel Caswell: vocals; Dave Stryker: guitar (1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11); Jeremy Allen: bass (2, 5, 7, 10, 12)