Noelle Goforth has a beautiful voice and a love for swing standards. On her CD ’Deed I Do, she performs a dozen of her favorite songs. She is joined by a top-notch jazz quartet (with pianist David Mesquitic having a prominent role) and, on various numbers, the excellent trumpeter Curtis Calderon, tenor-saxophonist Lyon Graulty (who also has all-too-brief cameos on clarinet) and, quite effectively on “Mister Sandman,” banjoist Tyler Jackson.
The biggest surprise to the music on ’Deed I Do is that there are no surprises. Ms. Goforth uses what I call “Tony Bennett arrangements” in that on many of the songs she sings the first chorus straight, and then after a half-chorus of a brief solo, she returns to finish the song, basically repeating what she has already sung. She does not deviate from the words and mostly sticks pretty close to the melody. Some songs have a bit more space for solos but the singer’s role remains the same.
With that attractive a voice, I wish that Noelle Goforth would improvise a bit and stretch herself. Otherwise it is very difficult to make songs such as “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “Out Of Nowhere,” “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love,” and “Orange Colored Sky” sound very predictable. Hopefully next time, Noelle Goforth will take some chances and add more than just her voice to the vintage material. She certainly has the potential.
