Wouldn’t It Be Loverly is a new and noteworthy CD by chanteuse Lisa Lindsley. She performs on two continents, usually around the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. and, when in France, with her group La Belle Époque. This recording was made with her French group which includes Lauren Marode, piano; Jeff Chambers, bass; Mourad Benhammou, drums; and multi-instrumentalist Esaie Cid on tenor sax, flute, and clarinet.
Ms. Lindsley has a mellow voice with clear diction. Her group just plays the pretty notes and gives her lots of space in which to operate. Permit me to ramble a bit on my observations about the function of supporting musicians. I had opportunity to see late pianist Paul Smith perform at a number of Dick Gibson jazz parties, the so-called Super Bowl of jazz parties. He was versatile with great chops. When necessary, he could improvise with appropriate musical quotations providing humor to the ensemble’s music. However, when he came to Pensacola in 1985 as accompanist to Ella Fitzgerald, he just played the right notes to make the singer sound wonderful. This illustration, I hope, gets the point across when I said Ms. Lindsley’s ensemble performs to enhance the vocalist.
Songs on this CD include: “Everyone Wants to Be a Cat” (Huddleston and Rinker); “I Could Have Danced All Night” (Lerner and Lowe); “Jeepers Creepers” (Warren and Mercer); “Heather on t
