Claire Martin

NO shoddy Best Of for Claire, but a generous, sumptuous repackaging of her first four studio albums for Linn, from The Waiting Game (1992) to Make This City Ours (1997).

The voice tangibly broadens, as does the subject matter. Martin has a genius for finding contemporary songs that chime with the sophistication of the old. She inducted Tom Waits into the Great American Songbook with Old Boyfriends (1994).

Less sentimental than Stacey Kent, the youthful Martin can be winningly offhand and delectably hardboiled (try Some Cats).

Early Years makes a lavish companion to the emotionally mature He Never Mentioned Love, the heartfelt Shirley Horn homage which was her twelfth album for Linn. Together, they represent a model lesson in how to nurture conspicuous talent over time.

From Abbey Road to New York and from big hair to a short crop, this stonking (and very reasonably priced) 4-CD set covers 6 years of Claire Martin’s stellar career from her first release in 1992.

“The Waiting Game” is an accomplished debut album, establishing Claire’s trademark combination of top London-scene musicians playing a quirky mix of songs. From the start, she’s got the confidence to make her own song the title track and to put a Joni Mitchell and the off the wall The Keys to Your Ferrari next to lesser-known standards and Broadway tunes. The Keys To Your Ferrari breaks the speed limit, with its inventive scat intro and wordless vocal solo.

The second album, “Devil May Care”, includes 5 co-written originals and introduces a superb horn line-up. Claire arranges her songs around her band, rather than vice versa, and the result is a fast, snaking solo by Iain Ballamy on Can’t Give Enough and a punchy rock-inflected interlude by Nigel Hitchcock over On Thin Ice. She melts hearts by singing Close Enough For Love as quiet as can be in a duet with Jim Mullen’s guitar, and gets dynamics to die for out of the 50s song Save Your Love for Me.

Jim Mullen, Clark Tracey and Arnie Somogyi are the threads running through Claire’s first three albums. Probably the best in this collection, “Old Boyfriends”, has a perfect balance of tunes and tempos and huge variety in its arrangements. Mark Nightingale swings for England with a gutsy solo on When The Sun Comes Out. This is followed by Claire’s almost-whispered Close As Pages In A Book and Steve Melling’s edgy, percussive piano on Partners In Crime (by the guy who wrote The Pina Colada Song). A note-perfect bass-and-voice solo with Arnie on Moon Ray and a drum-voice duet with Clark on Out Of My Continental Mind keep the rhythm section and the listener happy, and the thrills of this album continue with Claire’s self-portrait version of Tom Waits Old Boyfriends.

The last CD of the set is the high-kicking, heavy-swinging “Make This City Ours”. It’s now 1997 and Claire’s voice is richer and more relaxed, but the pin stripes on the cover show that she means business! US producer Joel Siegel records it in the Big Apple and Gareth Williams (piano) and Gerard Presencer (trumpet) pop across the pond to join musicians from the New York jazz fraternity. Gareth Williams is bristling and inventive on Empty Bed then completely changes his musical personality for a flowing and consonant solo on Could This Be The One?. On Estate brushes flutter across drums and Claire’s silken voice caresses the lyrics, while the standard No Moon At All races along with a blinding sax solo from Antonio Hart.

Claire Martin has never been more in demand, which may be why Linn chose to release her back catalogue now. Looking back, it’s surprising to see how consistently superb she’s been. Her voice may have become richer, but apart from that her hair has changed more than her music.

You don’t have to be a dedicated jazz fan to appreciate the re-release of Claire Martin’s first four albums with Linn Records in the form of the boxset “Claire Martin – The Early Years Anthology”. From “The Waiting Game” and “Devil May Care” to “Old Boyfriends” and “Make This City Ours”, they’re a treat.

This splendid collection brings together Martin’s first four albums, and serves to underline that she’s not just one of the best jazz singers in Britain, she’s one of the best anywhere. There are some terrific performances here, from You Hit the Spot through well-worn standards like When The Sun Comes Out, but one of the things the collection brings into focus is Martin’s knack for finding unfamiliar material and performing it with such gusto it makes the listener wonder why such songs never became standards.

As far as its jazz catalogue is concerned, Claire Martin is the artist who has defined the Linn sound. Released at budget price and collecting together the singer’s first four studio albums for the label – “The Waiting Game” (1992), “Devil May Care” (1993), “Old Boyfriends” (1994) and “Make This City Ours” (1997) – “The Early Years Anthology” raises an interesting question. Has any UK jazz singer ever arrived so fully formed? Chosen by The Times as one of its “Records of the Year”, there’s nothing abecedarian about the debut album. Including You Hit the Spot and Some Cats, it announces the arrival of a bona fide jazz singer. Kicking off with a superior reading of Bob Dorough’s title track, the follow-up “Devil May Care” brings Martin’s lyrical and compositional talents to the fore. Released in the year that the singer received the “Rising Star” award at the British Jazz Awards, “Old Boyfriends” boasts a typically eclectic song list ranging from the Tom Waits title track to the Burt Bacharach rarity Out Of My Continental Mind. Featuring new pianist Gareth Williams and recorded in NYC with a top-flight band, “Make This City Ours” exudes an even greater confidence and zip.

Heard back to back, what’s most striking is the singer’s ability perform any number of emotional states, from the lugubrious reflection of The People That You Never Get To Love and ardent pleading of Save Your Love For Me, to the quiet exultation of Gentleman Friend and carpe diem sentiments of Make This City Ours Tonight. There’s nothing remotely ersatz or candy coated about Martin. Every line is sung with a dramatic credibility. The anthology shows her to be that rarest of things: a singer who actually lives up to the extravagant claims made on their behalf.

Now, newly remastered, to rediscover her bestselling album “Perfect Alibi” (2000) is to marvel once again at its freshness. The singer brings subtlety and insight to a diverse collection that runs the gamut from the large-cast sumptuousness of How Can I Be Sure? and People Make The World Go Round to the stripped down duets of Shadowville and More Than I  Can Bear, featuring multi-instrumentalist and producer Paul Stacey.

This very attractive package brings us the first four albums recorded by Claire Martin between 1991 and 1997. Her accompanists include Jim Mullen and Jonathan Gee on “The Waiting Game” and “Devil May Care”, Mullen and Steven Melling on “Old Boyfriends” and Gareth Williams on “Make This City Ours”. A varied programme including standards, contemporary songs and originals shows off a distinctive voice.

Claire Martin has long been recognized as perhaps Britain’s leading jazz singer. But listening to “The Early Years Anthology”, a box set containing her first four studio CDs, one is struck by how, even on her debut, “The Waiting Game” (1992), her estimable qualities were already in place. Her sensitivity to lyrics? Check. Her improvisational confidence? Check. Her technical assurance? Check. Her emotional range? Check. Her seemingly effortless ability to swing? Check. Really, one listens in vain for any hint of tentativeness or callowness.

“The Waiting Game” and its follow up, “Devil May Care” (1993), feature exemplary musicianship from guitarist Jim Mullen and pianist Jonathan Gee on both contemporary songs and choices from the Great American Songbook, but the latter album also includes four interesting Martin compositions or co-compositions which show an impressive poetic sensibility. Oddly, Martin barely features as a writer again. Still, on “Old Boyfriends” (1994) Rupert Holmes’s witty, dark Partners in Crime is sung with huge aplomb and there is a compelling interpretation of Tom Waits’s poignant title track. And on “Make This City Ours” (1997) her interpretations of standards such as Irving Berlin’s How Deep is the Ocean are very persuasive with trumpeter Gerard Presencer and saxophonist Antonio Hart contributing tellingly.

“Perfect Alibi” (2000) has been issued separately and features Martin applying her jazz chops to songs by Jimi Hendrix, Laura Nyro, Todd Rundgren and others. Man in the Station is a striking duet with John Martyn, the song’s composer.

Well, I’ve been well and truly Claire Martinned – and it’s a good thing to be, I can tell you. With these four from the ‘nineties, which I hadn’t heard before, plus the five that I already had, I thought I might have the Linn CM output so far. But I discover that there are a couple more I have to catch up with.

With Claire having been showing British female jazz singers how to do it during two decades now, the nineties were her ‘early years’, and this package, ranging from her Waiting Game debut (1992), through Devil May Care (1993), Old Boyfriends (1994), to Make This City Ours (1997), provides some intriguing insights.

The object lessons Claire has given from the start are to do with choice. Firstly in terms of accompanying musicians – in ‘92 and ‘93, the redoubtable Jonathan Gee was her pianist, in alliance with guitar all-rounder Jim Mullen. Arnie Somogyi on bass and Clark Tracey on drums made it an ace quartet. Superb front-line soloists added included Nigel Hitchcock and Iain Ballamy. Steve Melling’s piano talents were utilised on her third outing, with Mark Nightingale contributing torrid trombone. ‘97 found her in New York backed by an Anglo-American group that introduced another prime piano partner, Gareth Williams, with solo brilliance from trumpetman Gerard Presencer and US altoist Antonio Hart. Equally important has been her chosen material. Nobly avoiding overdone oldies, she has combined good-quality recent songs, some her own, with earlier rarities.

The one detracting factor recurring amid the first three CDs is not being able to comprehend some of the lyrics. In the case of the novel Better Than Anything, the blame can be laid on the too-fast tempo it is taken at. There’s also some near-gabbling on an obscure Bacharach song, Out Of My Continental Mind. Elsewhere no such excuse applies – sadly, several of them being her originals. I’m reminded of various other singers’ albums, where I’m appreciative of all the words being printed in the notes. Then, in the final New York session, comes the answer: Claire is much more up front in the balance, and throughout a wide range of tempos, every words can be heard loud and clear, making the messages fully understandable.

Egy kiváló jazz énekesno gazdag pályájának elso korszakát mutatja be ez a 4 lemezbol álló, igen szép kiadvány. Hosszú kapcsolat fuzi az énekesnot a skót lemezkiadóhoz. A Linn Records 1991-ben kötött szerzodést az énekesnovel lemezei kiadására, ez a kapcsolat azóta 12 lemez kiadását eredményezte, ezek közül 5 British/BBC Jazz Award díjat kapott. Jelen anthologia 4 megjelent lemezt tartalmaz:

The Waiting Game (1992)
Devil May Care (1993)
Old Boyfriends (1994)
Make This City Ours (1997)

A lemezeket hallgatva megértjük miért olyan szoros a kapcsolat az audiofil lemezkiadó és Claire Martin között. A szép énekesno páratlan muzikalitása, lágy hangjának hangulatteremto ereje a legjobbak közé emeli ot a mai jazz énekesek között. Sokak szerint Peggy Lee-hez hasonlítható éneke, ennél nagyobb dicséretet aligha kaphat jazz énekesno. Az öt évet felölelo anthológiát hallgatva felfigyelhetünk arra is, hogy milyen nagymértékben fejlodött ez ido alatt a Linn stúdió felvételi technikája.