untitled

{ Reviews }

fidelio online
classical, jazz and world music magazine

There are card games, tarot and bridge, for example, that display such inexhaustible variation in playing the possible combinations of the deal that it would take several lifetimes to play them all. And so it is with singing the standards. You may know the words, melodies, and harmonies, but if the singer's voice and performance are unique, her interpretation differs from her predecessors'.

She will be able to arouse that special feeling in the listener that he is hearing something familiar, yet at the same time, something entirely new and unknown. New wines from heritage grapes bottled anew.

Deborah Latz's debut album convinces the listener that with the proper talent and sensitivity it is indeed worthwhile even today to reach back into the classical compositions of the genre. It is hard to imagine an impersonal album by a jazz-singer: even in instrumentalists' repertoires the attraction to certain melodies plays an important role - while a singer - in addition to the music - works with lyrics as well. Every jazz-singer's collection betrays something of the performer's temperament, current problems, and emotional life. But while many singers are modestly silent about the personal significance of the songs they sing, Deborah Latz states in her bio that the connection in the preparation of this album was finding a great love; it was such a special and decisive moment in her life which she - as an artist - had to pour into some form and had to tell. Toward Love can be understood as telling a story, though there clearly exists a more personal reading of the collection of songs which necessarily remains hidden from the listener. And it is not really our task to dissect its innermost private meaning. This collection can be understood even without its most personal meaning and the critic is inclined to follow the singer's instructions and listen to each piece as a chapter of a story about her own life.

Why does Deborah Latz tell her story with the jazz evergreen standards and not with her own compositions? Presumably in the critical moments of her life it was the pieces from the jazz songbooks that expressed most faithfully those feelings that she needed to record. These songs - known by us all - are so tailored to Deborah Latz's life, that her renditions are entirely unique, natural and authentic. I won't discuss each of the ten performances individually, it is enough to point out several highlights and productions I find most exciting. The first is the Rodgers and Harts' tune, Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered, about love's blindness and its other-worldly, incomparable rapturous feeling. This song should only be sung only with an intimate tone, as though completely possessed, otherwise it doesn't ring true. With appropriately placed sighs Deborah Latz's interpretation reveals at least as many secrets about a woman's soul as other famous performers of this song have, for example, Dianne Schuur, Laura Fygi or Sinead O'Connor. And let me add: the accompaniment on this album is first-rate to the end. In Bewitched Timo Elliston guides the percussion flawlessly, and in the middle of the piece we are amazed by a tender bass solo. This is true also of Antonio Carlos Jobim's How Insensitive (Insensatez). If possible, the performance here is even more unique. With Ben Sher's lavish accompaniment on guitar, Ms. Latz makes magic of Jobim's immortal and tireless great. Everyone knows that the key to the song, What Can One Do When a Love Affair Is Over, is that painful unanswered question. In Deborah Latz's interpretation, the narrator of the song is the person bleeding from a thousand emotional wounds, broken by love, who is so terrified by betrayal that she speaks in the voice of a quaking child hiding in the corner. The singer's moderato, sometimes song-speak performance creates a kind of bridge between the dreaminess of Bewitched and Avril a Paris which she interprets in a French parlando. The confident performance of April in Paris and the memorable renditions of Lover Man and Night and Day -in which she again exploits the possibilities of song-speak - can in part probably be attributed to her earlier acting career. In 1999 Ms. Latz won the prize for best actress in the Jerzy Grotowski Theater Festival in Wroclaw for her portrayal of Juliet in a one-woman show. Ms. Latz has also achieved great success on both coasts of the U.S. with two one-woman shows: The Prisoner, which tells the story of a Polish holocaust survivor; and the musical, Travels with My Own Self, written and performed by Ms. Latz . Should Deborah Latz return to the stage, the theater community will benefit; however, if she continues her jazz singer career it is the jazz-lovers who win.

Deborah Latz: Toward Love; Deborah Latz (vocals); Timo Elliston (piano) Bob Bowen (bass); Jimmy Wormworth (drums); Ben Sher (guitar); June Moon 2004.

-Máté J. György

<< go back


	{ Reviews }

	fidelio online classical, jazz and world music magazine There are card games, tarot and bridge, for example, that display such inexhaustible variation in playing the possible combinations of the deal that it would take several lifetimes to play them all. And so it is with singing the standards. You may know the words, melodies, and harmonies, but if the singer's voice and performance are unique, her interpretation differs from her predecessors'. She will be able to arouse that special feeling in the listener that he is hearing something familiar, yet at the same time, something entirely new and unknown. New wines from heritage grapes bottled anew. Deborah Latz's debut album convinces the listener that with the proper talent and sensitivity it is indeed worthwhile even today to reach back into the classical compositions of the genre. It is hard to imagine an impersonal album by a jazz-singer: even in instrumentalists' repertoires the attraction to certain melodies plays an important role - while a singer - in addition to the music - works with lyrics as well. Every jazz-singer's collection betrays something of the performer's temperament, current problems, and emotional life. But while many singers are modestly silent about the personal significance of the songs they sing, Deborah Latz states in her bio that the connection in the preparation of this album was finding a great love; it was such a special and decisive moment in her life which she - as an artist - had to pour into some form and had to tell. Toward Love can be understood as telling a story, though there clearly exists a more personal reading of the collection of songs which necessarily remains hidden from the listener. And it is not really our task to dissect its innermost private meaning. This collection can be understood even without its most personal meaning and the critic is inclined to follow the singer's instructions and listen to each piece as a chapter of a story about her own life. Why does Deborah Latz tell her story with the jazz evergreen standards and not with her own compositions? Presumably in the critical moments of her life it was the pieces from the jazz songbooks that expressed most faithfully those feelings that she needed to record. These songs - known by us all - are so tailored to Deborah Latz's life, that her renditions are entirely unique, natural and authentic. I won't discuss each of the ten performances individually, it is enough to point out several highlights and productions I find most exciting. The first is the Rodgers and Harts' tune, Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered, about love's blindness and its other-worldly, incomparable rapturous feeling. This song should only be sung only with an intimate tone, as though completely possessed, otherwise it doesn't ring true. With appropriately placed sighs Deborah Latz's interpretation reveals at least as many secrets about a woman's soul as other famous performers of this song have, for example, Dianne Schuur, Laura Fygi or Sinead O'Connor. And let me add: the accompaniment on this album is first-rate to the end. In Bewitched Timo Elliston guides the percussion flawlessly, and in the middle of the piece we are amazed by a tender bass solo. This is true also of Antonio Carlos Jobim's How Insensitive (Insensatez). If possible, the performance here is even more unique. With Ben Sher's lavish accompaniment on guitar, Ms. Latz makes magic of Jobim's immortal and tireless great. Everyone knows that the key to the song, What Can One Do When a Love Affair Is Over, is that painful unanswered question. In Deborah Latz's interpretation, the narrator of the song is the person bleeding from a thousand emotional wounds, broken by love, who is so terrified by betrayal that she speaks in the voice of a quaking child hiding in the corner. The singer's moderato, sometimes song-speak performance creates a kind of bridge between the dreaminess of Bewitched and Avril a Paris which she interprets in a French parlando. The confident performance of April in Paris and the memorable renditions of Lover Man and Night and Day -in which she again exploits the possibilities of song-speak - can in part probably be attributed to her earlier acting career. In 1999 Ms. Latz won the prize for best actress in the Jerzy Grotowski Theater Festival in Wroclaw for her portrayal of Juliet in a one-woman show. Ms. Latz has also achieved great success on both coasts of the U.S. with two one-woman shows: The Prisoner, which tells the story of a Polish holocaust survivor; and the musical, Travels with My Own Self, written and performed by Ms. Latz . Should Deborah Latz return to the stage, the theater community will benefit; however, if she continues her jazz singer career it is the jazz-lovers who win. Deborah Latz: Toward Love; Deborah Latz (vocals); Timo Elliston (piano) Bob Bowen (bass); Jimmy Wormworth (drums); Ben Sher (guitar); June Moon 2004. -Máté J. György

	<< go back