In review--Songs for the Road
The Song that Sings You Here
Challenge Records
If
you didn’t know the story behind Chris McNulty’s album The Song that Sings You Here, you might find the album romantic and
sensual. And it is those things, but the
irony of McNulty’s son’s death and the story that McNulty includes in the liner
notes contributes pathos that hovers over both the covers and original tunes
that grace the album. For instance, when
you hear the jazz chanteuse croon the words to One Less Bell to Answer (Bacharach/David), you feel
McNulty’s heart breaking. Then the
vocalist closes the album with the titular song she composed before the death
of her son. She sings, “Just like the
sun, an ageless flame. Just like the
moon and sand. Just like your eyes that shine forever here through all time, love’s
a long road home.”
Backed
by a stellar band that includesUgonna Okegwo on bass, Marcus Gilmore on drums,
Paul Bollenback on guitars, Andrei Kondokov and Graham Wood on piano, Igor
Butman on saxophones and Anita Wardell on guest vocals, McNulty works from a
rich palette of moods and emotions.
There’s not a phrase here that she doesn’t color and claim as her own
and every word she sings feels ripe with the spirit of living. However, most listeners will grab onto the
sexy lyrics such as on the opening track, How
Little We Know (Springer/Leigh) where two tingles come together and mingle
or the text on The Lamp is Low (De Rose/Shefter) or on Fats Waller’s Jitterbug
Waltz which gets the full blues vocals effect here.
Overall,
McNulty and her band remind us that jazz is about the art of living as well
as, overcoming hardships through musical expression. The cathartic set of songs that range from
the hopeful On the Street Where You Live
(Loewe/Lerner) to the mesmerizing Letter
to Marta (McNulty) to the anguish-laced One
Less Bell, this album indeed sings us all home to our souls. And for anyone looking for a jazz vocalist who
celebrates this thing we called life, McNulty fits the bill.
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