On You Are The Light and The Way Alex Bird & The Jazz Mavericks prove through musicality and improvisation that 12 new original songs sound familiar enough as to suggest they belong in a new version of The Great American Songbook.
Call it “The New Cool” if you will.
Ewen Farncombe (piano-B-3) and Bird write the songs that blend into a melting pot which is both richly melodic and economic.
The bravest investment has to be the string quartet employed with Bird’s stunning vocal on Where The Blackbird Sings.
If that was not enough check out the fills via the sax and clarinet work by Jacob Gorzhaltsan here and throughout the album.
Fool For Love with nods to Nat King Cole and Tony Bennett brims warmly over the bed of Farncombe’s B-3 organ and Bird and Gorzhaltsa’s interplay. It’s a definite live set crowd pleaser as is the wildy Mel Torme inspired My Cutie Pie
Elsewhere the title track puts Bird’s unique killer voice upfront in a Bobby Darin type way while Old Soul swings madly behind a 4 piece horn section and Eric West’s excellent drumming and Leighton Harrell’s consistent bass work.
Sophisticated and beautifully recorded the album shines especially on revealing and intimate songs such as Tell Me It’s You (gorgeous solo by Farncombe) and the organic Sittin’ By My Lonesome.
Original and daring the possibilities of Bird and the Jazz Mavericks to be true stylists is wide open.
JOHN EMMS is a veteran music journalist, musician and contributor to Post Media, The Juno Awards and Toronto Blues Society
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