Claire Martin

Claire Martin, however, has consistency in spades. Innovation and taking the difficult path to achieve a bigger goal is uppermost in her mind. Her take on the standard, Everything I’ve Got Belongs To You, on her new album A Modern Art is an ideal example. Here’s a familiar song that remains interesting, as Martin picks it apart and inventively puts it back together. An album that keep you on your toes.

Another top-notch release from a UK jazz artist is A Modern Art, the 13th, and best, long-player from Claire Martin, who began her career as a singer on the QE2. Thirteen is obviously a lucky number for the Wimbledon-born singer, who’s in scintillating form on a blend of uptempo funky numbers (check out her spunky rendering of Rodgers & Hart’s Everything I’ve Got Belongs To You) and ruminative ballads, including a poignant vocal version of the late Esbjorn Svensson’s Love Is Real.

Singer-songwriter and Radio 3 jazz presenter Claire Martin has managed to combine her separate though interrelated professions with great aplomb, but with A Modern Art has come up with arguably her most contemporary sounding and accomplished recording thus far. Perhaps it is the recent residency in New York that has done her a power of good and on this album Martin has very successfully provided a modern twist to the vocal repertoire. This includes the Steely Dan pairing, Michael Franks and even a vocal take on an instrumental piece from the late Esbjorn Svensson. She is to be commended for going beyond the standard jazz repertoire and find other songs that can be just as well interpreted, but relate specifically to contemporary society. Taking a leaf out of the school of jazz irony personified by Mose Allison and Patricia Barber, So Twentieth Century is a nice swinging original piece while the band really stretch out on Love of Another that introduces the talented songwriting of Rebekka Bakken with fine piano and ensemble accompaniment.

A light Latin breeze is one way to describe Martin’s take on Donald Fagen and Walter Becker’s Things I Miss The Most and Gareth Williams plays a lovely solo here. What impresses in general is the desire to take chances (something Claire Martin alludes to in her sleeve notes) and explore new territory in the choice of song as in adding lyrics to the Joshua Redman instrumental Lowercase which is an uptempo number with saxophone, or in the beautiful ballad rendition of Love Is Real in homage to Esbjorn Svensson. The album is extremely varied in tempo and context, the title track providing a big band ambience while Michael Franks’ Sunday Morning Here With You is delivered in the most intimate of settings with trio and guitar. Proceedings end with an even sparser format of guitar, bass and vocals on Nirvana. Claire Martin seems to have reached her own nirvana on this album and A Modern Art seems set to be her most successful to date.

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What I really love is that, in a world of folk singers singing slightly bluesy songs, singers who once had a deal with a jazz label now not singing jazz at all, and singers who think singing standards somehow automatically makes them jazz singers, Claire Martin is the real thing: a jazz singer. It matters not what she sings, she makes it jazz because, like a jazz version of Blackpool rock, it goes all the way through.

She covers a wide range of material on this disc, from rareties of the great American songbook (like Rodgers & Hart’s Everything I’ve Got Belongs To You), originals (like the stunning title track written by Claire and MD Laurence Cottle), jazz pop songs (like Fagen & Becker’s Things I Miss The Most, and Michael Franks’ Sunday Morning Here With You), and, most fascinatingly, modern jazz tunes with added lyrics (like EST’s Love Is Real with words by Josh Haden, and Joshua Redman’s Lowercase with words by Mark Winkler).

That Redman track is the place to start if you thought jazz singers were a bit too showbiz and cabaret for you – it’s a storming piece of thoroughly 21st century jazz. In fact that can be said of the whole album. Martin has found a way of making jazz singing a modern art when so much of the time it has retreated into an exercise in nostalgia.

She’s warm and romantic when she wants to be, more muscular in tone and articulation when that’s what’s needed, and is the absolute mistress when it comes to fitting a lot of words into a tricky melody line at speed. And her choice of musicians and bassist Laurence Cottle to arrange and produce the whole affair echoes that same modern spirit. Gareth Williams is on piano, James Maddren and Chris Dagley share the drum duties, Nigel Hitchcock is on alto and Mark Nightingale on trombone. Phil Robson comes in on guitar and Sola Akingbola adds percussion.

I’ve also lost track of the number of CDs Claire Martin has made for Linn (great recorded sound guaranteed). And this is, I think, the best one yet.

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The most gifted jazz singer this country has produced in 20 years, Claire Martin ought to be a much bigger name on both sides of the Atlantic. At least she has the satisfaction of having helped to redefine the repertoire. As ever, she veers left-field in an intelligent yet passionate set, a haunting treatment of Esbjorn Svensson’s Love Is Real nestling alongside Mark Winkler’s memorably angular lyrics on the Joshua Redman tune Lowercase. Martin leaves ample space for a band featuring some of our most accomplished musicians, the saxman Nigel Hitchcock among them. (You can’t help wishing that she would be more willing to grab the limelight, instead of being one of the boys in the band.)

Claire Martin doesn’t do makeovers, or market repositionings – she’s a consummate jazz singer with old-school virtues, and she wins plaudits everywhere she works. But her repertoire has always ranged way beyond the standards book, and this fine 13th album features only one Broadway song, plus material by Steely Dan, Michael Franks and more. The title track is a messianic original on jazz’s evolving essence (written with bassist Laurence Cottle), and features some sparkling Nigel Hitchcock alto and Gareth Williams piano – Hitchcock and trombonist Mark Nightingale sound like a much bigger section on Cottle’s funky horn arrangements. Martin’s voice sounds richer and her delivery more relaxed than before, and if one or two of the Latin grooves and sumptuous textures occasionally give the set a smooth-jazz quality, its title track’s sentiment resists. The continuing refinement of this elegant artist is palpable.

Claire Martin has always brought an empowered feminine intelligence to bear on her work, that sidesteps all the retro cliches of her frothy, over-hyped counterparts. The two things that make this her finest album to date are the wry wisdom and gorgeous, post-jazz melodies, sourced from the likes of Steely Dan, Swedish piano trio EST and cult songwriter Micheal Franks. With cunning arrangements by bassist/producer Laurence Cottle, Martin’s dark, velvety voice navigates each harmonic twist, with acerbic words to the wise and poignantly personal tales.

Where ever-dependable Claire Martin’s last album was a tribute to Shirley Horn, this new set is an intriguing mix of brand new material, carefully chosen covers and an eclectic dip into the great American Songbook. The two from that last source are Cy Coleman’s Everybody Today Is Turning On and Rodgers and Hart’s Everything I’ve Got Belongs To You while of the other covers perhaps the most interesting is a take on Steely Dan’s Things I Miss The Most while a version of Esbjorn Svensson’s Love Is Real has an outstanding soul quality. Of Claire’s original material Edgeways is a Latin delight, rivalled by the album’s title cut which takes a much-needed swipe at celebrity culture and the dumbing-down of popular music… naturally, no dumbing-down here though.

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Claire Martin has a head start in the field of young women singers which has become increasingly crowded over the last decade. Voted Best Vocalist a record five times at the BBC/British Jazz Awards, she is acknowledged as one of the world`s finest jazz singers.

Receiving wider fame as presenter of Jazz Line-Up on BBC Radio 3, Claire appears at jazz festivals worldwide.

17 years on from her debut album The Waiting Game, Linn Records has released her 13th CD, A Modern Art.

The dazzling arrangements are by Claire`s long-time musical collaborator, bass player Laurence Cottle, and he has surpassed himself here with charts worthy of Stevie Wonder or Steely Dan.

His syncopated version of Rodgers and Hart`s Everything I’ve Got Belongs To You has Nigel Hitchcock (alto saxophone) and Mark Nightingale (trombone) playing a tricky horn chart which has a direct line to Stevie’s Sir Duke.

So Twentieth Century has a similarly dense brass arrangements which Donald Fagin would approve and witty lyrics by Colin Lazzerini to boot, plus a virtuoso saxophone solo from Hitchcock. Claire contributes lyrics on a couple of originals in partnership with music by Laurence Cottle, the title track and Edgeways, a bossa nova with overdubbed vocals by Claire and an effortlessly fluent solo from Mark Nightingale.

A Modern Art is the apt title for this album, which must go straight into the best of 2009 list. It is a stunning tribute to an outstanding jazz singer and an all star band, right up there with the classics such as the 1960s Mel Torme/Marty Paich albums. Techno-freaks will be delighted to learn that this new release is on Hybrid Super Audio Multichannel CD by Linn.

p>It’s a treat to hear alto-sax virtuoso Nigel Hitchcock in full flight – and trust Britain’s brightest jazz singer to organise it. Claire Martin always delivers the goods.

She’s got an instinct for outstanding British players – Hitchcock, guitarist Phil Robson, pianist Gareth Williams and bass-guitarist Laurence Cottle, for example – and an ear for the worthiest unsung songs by such as Rebekka Bakken, David Cantor, Michael Franks, Colin Lazzerini, Donald Fagen and Esbjorn Svensson.

Everything, including two new originals by Cottle and Claire herself, is delivered with her attractive mixture of slickness, warmth and humour. Catch her at Ronnie Scott’s on Monday and Tuesday.

She’s performed with John Martyn and Noel Gallagher and often features Tom Waits and Nick Drake songs in her repertoire, so it’s no surprise that Brit jazz singer Claire Martin has chosen to make A Modern Art a scrapbook of contemporary songs.

The exception is Rodgers and Hart’s Everything I’ve Got Belongs to You. It was written in the 1940s, but it’s strikingly forthright and modern, fitting neatly with tunes by the likes of Donald Fagan and Coleman and Lazzerini.

While all the pieces on A Modern Art are strong on lyrics, the focus is on funk, blues, driving bass and swinging horns. Surprisingly, the horn section is just Mark Nightingale on trombone and Nigel Hitchcock on sax, but together they manage to sound like a miniature big band.

Bassist Laurence Cottle’s complex arrangements blur the boundaries between the singer and the band. He writes Claire’s voice into the horn section in So Twentieth Century and there’s plenty of space for solos. Hitchcock rocks on Everything I’ve Got Belongs to You, Nightingale’s trombone chatters through Martin and Cottle’s Edge Ways (a funny piece about a terminal bore), and Gareth Williams’ fluid piano sets cascading notes against shifting time signatures in Promises.

In a moving tribute to Esbjörn Svensson, Claire’s version of his ballad Love is Real shuns frippery. There are no tricky time signatures or clever arrangements here. Williams gets straight to the simple, bluesy heart of the piece while Claire’s voice starts silky and breathy and expands to gospel proportions.

With A Modern Art, Claire Martin proves that vocalists can be musicians too, even if they don’t sit behind a piano.

www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/qw9x

No-one manages to transplant the sophistication of the Songbook era to our own time with the conviction of Claire Martin.

She announces her modernity by providing the antithesis to modernity on the title track. So Twentieth Century is a wry put-down of allegedly unfashionable musical and human virtues. Martin’s achievement is clear: the songs proclaim ennui, disillusion and detachment, while the singer herself is the incarnation of sass and vivacity.

Steely Dan cast a large shadow over A Modern Art, even if there’s only one Becker-Fagen cover (Things I Miss The Most: the last word on ennui). It’s there in the seamless fusion of pop and jazz, and in the perfection of the arrangements. Yet the album avoids sterility: the highlight is a heartfelt reading of Esbjorn Svensson’s Love Is Real, a true modern jazz standard.

For her thirteenth album, the singer makes impressive efforts to dodge the tried-and-tired of the jazz repertoire. She sings lyrics to a free-flowing Joshua Redman melody and makes Steely Dan’s wry The Things I Miss The Most her own. Elsewhere, her versions of such urbane numbers as Everything I’ve Got Belongs to You by Rodgers and Hart and Cy Coleman’s Everybody Today is Turning On are utterly assured.

One of the problems of the relatively insular jazz scene in the UK is ubiquity. You see an artist over the years, and you think you know their story. But artists grow, they mature and suddenly they can turn around and take you by surprise. Which is what A Modern Art does. Claire Martin has always been a talented and exciting singer, but with this album, she gives evidence of both maturity and being at one with her art in a way that builds on He Never Mentioned Love, her previous album. She could always sing a good song well, but like many recordings by Ella Fitzgerald there was a sense of remaining at arms length from the emotional subtext of the lyrics. But here she seems intent on conveying each song’s inner meaning, revealing an emotional depth that was perhaps missing on earlier albums such as Off Beat. This is revealed on pieces such as Love of Another and As We Live and Breathe and even witty pieces such as The Things I Miss the Most or So Twentieth Century. To paraphrase Robert Graves, Claire Martin is really very good, despite all the people who say she’s very good.

As a multiple winner of prestigious ‘best vocalist’ awards, you could hardly call Claire Martin an unknown quantity. Her 1992 debut, The Waiting Game, immediately established her pre-eminence among her peers but her new album shows the London diva isn’t one to rest on her laurels. Packed with fresh and very contemporary-wounding arrangements, the significantly titled A Modern Art (Linn) reaches beyond the Great American Songbook to explore fresh songwriting territory. The album still contains a few jazz standards but it’s the less obvious inclusions that really catch the ear, in particular Steely Dan’s Things I Miss The Most: ‘The talk/The sex/Somebody to trust/The comfy Eames chair/The good copper pans,’ runs the wryly melancholic lyric, beautifully delivered with trademark cool-school virtuosity by Martin. There’s great work from rising piano star Gareth Williams, too.

I’ve listened to Claire Martin at various times of the day over the last few months. She is one of those artists who’s well known, but not so much in the States as abroad. I’m glad to hear someone is still out there doing this combination of styles in an age when electronic rhythm and scratchy turntable moves have replaced any sense of the “human beat”, that of the heart, on CD. Martin’s, a fine musician whose voice is often dusky but can be light and smooth as well. Her pitch is impeccable and she always has a story to tell us. That’s a big compliment in this world of singers who seem to think that intonation and understanding of the words don’t matter; or they may do well with those things but spend all their time doing quasi gospel riffs in place of real phrasing. The problem with understanding the words is surely nothing new to anyone. Just think of that great teeny bop wonder, “Louie Louie”, covered by the Kingsmen in 1963. Even the FBI got into the act of trying to decipher the non existent “obscene” lyrics. After spending tens of thousands to “dig out the filth” The Feds, along with the rest of us still don’t understand exactly what’s being slurred at us by the very wily singer. Thankfully no one went to jail.

When is it best to play this Martin CD from the year 2000? I’d say the time will come when you are ready to relax and as Linn so aptly puts it, here’s the “Perfect Alibi” for doing so. I’d open a bottle of wine – turn down the lights or just let the burning embers of an evening’s fire lend a glow to the room. Curl up somewhere comfy, (maybe with that other who compliments your cuddling skills so well) then play this CD. It always leads me to a cool mood.

Certainly the first tune, “How Can I Be Sure” from 1967, is sung and played very differently than the “Rascals” did it in the Hippie days of yore. It may catch you slightly off guard as you match that group’s arrangement with Martin’s way of telling the story. Track two, “Man in the Station”, is the only duet on the CD. Martin is joined vocally by the song’s composer, John Martyn, whose sexy rasp is a perfect foil for Martin’s more “professional” sound. (I love it when composer’s sing their own music. There’s nothing quite like it.) “Up From the Skies” is third; with an old rock and roll organ, acoustic guitar and drums keeping harmony and rhythm steady under her; Martin allows this song to flow so easily that it may wrap you up tightly in a curiously old yet new kind of sensuous experience.

There’s a wonderful shift at track four. This song was written by an artist that I have always cherished – Phoebe Snow. Martin may not have the unadulterated low growl and slow vibrato that makes Snow unique, but her rendition is her own and doesn’t come from a time when disco was knocking the club scene out of place. Wonderful Phoebe’s tune is refreshing to hear anew. It has a typical Snow title – “Inspired Insanity.”

Track 6, “Shadowville” is a languid ballad that sustains the intimate mood. I’m reminded there’s more Phoebe Snow influence here. Martin’s phrasing is smoother than Snow’s; it doesn’t “bounce” along with that slow beat in the voice that is one of Snow’s signature stylistic creations.

Track seven opens with some quirky harmonies played by a string quartet and a quietly undulating rhythm section. It’s called “Strangers Now” and the arrangement – the doubling of Martin’s voice – the whole song – has a feel of Joanie Mitchell; however Martin’s voice is much darker in comparison. It’s a special number done quite specially.

“More Than You’ll Ever Know” is a slow blues tune arranged by a collaboration of Martin and her colleagues. It has a late ‘50s soul feel to it, and could be slightly out of place here. It’s “verse – bridge – verse – bridge – verse” arrangement alternating between minor, major and minor etc. has a fine guitar riff found midway in; does Scotland sound like the New Orleans Delta? (That’s a place I was raised, mais oui, cher.) The intrinsic feel of the Creole South is not very evident and I think it needs a little more spice in the recipe.

The ninth track, “Over by Allenby”, has the groove and mix of a late 60s early 70s club song while 10, “More Than I Can Bear”, is a bit of fluff accompanied by guitars alone. “He’s a Runner”, track 11 has the slightest hint of Country Western with its slide guitar, but Martin sticks with a fuller vocal sound; there’s no twang in this lady’s vocal chords. The Scottish brogue would lend itself to that kind of sound, however. Its was very interesting to me when visiting Scotland, North England or Wales to discover that our own Country Western style actually derives more from them than the other way around.

The closing number is Todd Rundgren’s “Wailing Wall”. It has a simple electronic organ and synth quietly blending with the voice. I think Martin found the perfect exit with this “be still my soul” music.

By now Claire Martin has made clear two things. First, she is her own singer, never imitating anyone else; the arrangements might but Martin, never. Two, in that same vein, she is strictly her own artist. There’s a difference in the two. The voice is velvety one moment, pleasantly purring way down low the next. There’s plenty of power behind it, but she rarely chooses to “belt it out”. Few singers today phrase with this much imagination. I want to see her in performance. Then I can see what I only picture her doing with such beauty and grace.

The sound is excellent for a studio mix and is achieved through plenty of “tracking” or overdubbing. Martin’s band is in top form. Linn’s remastering seems fine.

There’s still not a jot of technical information about this recording or remastering. You just have to go by what you hear in order to understand that the recording equipment must have been first class. I do wish Linn would stop holding on to its precious secrets. Could I please know the name of just one microphone or monitor speaker. I’m sure Linn uses the very best recording equipment. So why not let us in on that information? Is it possible they don’t use their own brand of equipment for playback? Some of us care to know if for no other reason than the audiophile price of the CD at hand. THe recording is top notch regardless. Claire’s voice is warm, full and out front with a nice essence of air surrounding her. Piano is crisp and natural as are the other players. There is no new ground being broken here, but the sonics are in no way disappointing.