by Lisa Bell
Hapi Skratch Records
To me the impact is as much visual as sonic. The music plays almost like a movie; you see her up on stage singing, wearing provactive (but floor length) clothing while men in tuxes play and smoke in the background. It’s sultry, intimate, playful... not a corwd of 500, but more a crowd of 50, up close.
You see a couple having a romantic evening with Lisa singing in the background, you see the lyric storylines come to life; no need for a video when it’s all painted through the music. Jazz singer Bell writes a lot of her own material, inspried, she says, by singers such as Norah Jones, Eva Cassidy, Aretha Franklin, and Diana Krall.
It’s About Love is literally all about it – the good, the bad, the divorce (she actually uses THAT word!), the marriage no one has the guts to get out of; the picture isn’t always rosy, though in the mood I’m in right now, the fantasy of it all is what I’m enjoying the most; the more sex she puts in her voice the better the song. Still, when the sex is gone, she’s there to comment, carry on, and just say “This shit is messed up!”
While Bell has crooned her share of jazz standards, here she wisely opts for original material. She’s gone for some unusual arrangements, for instance include a dobro or pedal steel guitar, and she’s not afraid of making a pop crossover.
I thought some of her more admirable vocal qualities got lost on tracks such as “Along the Beaches” and “You’ll Find Me.” And frankly, this isn’t “my kind of music” so I don’t listen to enough of it to say where she rates among others in the field.
Lisa brings a wide range of experiece: singing backup to Bobby McFerrin, writing and singing commercial jingles, musical theater preformances, even singing on an Amtrak for a radio promotion. This CD should give her a more clout in a new generation of female jazz artists.
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