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MP3 Amanda Carr - Tender Trap
13 MP3 Songs
JAZZ: Jazz Vocals, EASY LISTENING: Crooners/Vocals
Tender Trap Songs
Details:
"As the lyrics to the CD's title track begin -- you see a pair of laughing eyes... there's romance a-budding. The bait is out and the Sammy Cahn - Jimmy Van Heusen tune is loaded with come-hithers. On Tender Trap, Amanda Carr gives voice and heart to anthems of romantic ambivalence. The young, seasoned keeper of the flame of The Enceinte North american Songbook weaves a delightful brocade of songs designed to keep a suitor cautiously wondering or flashing a marital green light. Coursing through this odyssey, Amanda discriminatingly presents a loving armful of standards, show tunes and a couple of originals to complement this entertaining collection. While she possesses the necessary certification as a genuine jazz singer, when interpreting these evergreens or new entries, she wears the jeweled lyrics on her heart. Take the retro-evocative ballad, I'll Close My Eyes, in which her gorgeously diaphanous outspoken is necklaced by the collective creations of the John Wilkins Trio. Kenny Hadley, a longtime organizer and drummer for small-to-large ensembles, earns extra credit as Tender Trap's producer as does Bob Pascarella's sound-board technique. And there are hat-hoisting solos by Arnie Krakowsky on tenor sax, Dick Johnson on alto and clarinet (both Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman wholeheartedly voiced their benediction of Dick's clarinet playing), trumpeter Rick Hammett and tenorist Jerry Vejmola.
Should you detect respectful nods to certain of Amanda's icons of song, you're not missing a beat. She achieves her tributes via underscoring of nuances rather than transparently miming of the lyrics; c.f. I'll Close My Eyes. Her diction chimes clear as Wexford crystal, her tone unmistakably personal or effervescently sprite as the scenario requires. After all, she has immersed herself in music since age 4, navigating with parental pedigree and eventually docking at adulthood with guest appearances and road engagements as a outspokenist for such big name bands as Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman and Harry James, in addition to a plethora of more intimate performances.
A couple of years ago, Carr approached Hadley, then performing with his 16-piece band, and seeded the collaboration that eventually spawned Tender Trap, focusing on the vagaries of romance. Her contextual choices are launched by Frank Loesser's Never Will I Marry from the 1960 stage musical Greenwillow, marking Anthony Perkins' love venture on Broadway, as Amanda, on this opening track, proclaims her resistance to riding the marry-go-round.
I'll Close My Eyes, a stunningly captivating ballad, focuses on the sapphired meditations of Wilkins' guitar while the lacy tenorizing of Krakowsky and Suchanek's arco de triumphe are supported by Hadley's empathetic time-keeping. All the while, Carr envisions a couple slow-dancing beneath a solitary spot. But, just when you think it doesn't get better than that, there's more... Dick Johnson takes an extended ride on Rodgers and Hart's Do It the Hard Way, one of the hidden delights from Pal Joey. Hadley lays down a samba to Carr's open-hearted reading on her own composition, What We Were Asking For. Tulip or Turnip is a fun trip of alternative choices; (i.e., filet or plain beef stew...). I'll Never Be the Same defines a ripening romance handsomely scribed by the singer's respectful embrace of lyric and Wilkins' velvet improvisations, just another tribute to this scintillating cast of professionals. Of Hadley's dedication to the preparation of the CD, Amanda does not spare the orchids: "Kenny is someone you can completely put your trust in musically, one who you know will put the integrity of the project above all else with his own brand of meticulous passion."
That Old Devil Moon, culled from Finian's Rainbow, is given a vigorous "up" treatment by Carr ...and catch Wilkins' puckish quote from If I Had You at the fade-out! She endows Throw it Away with a bravura outspoken as Hadley sets the table with a Moroccan feel along with Suchanek's distinguished arco passages fore and aft. The bassist and Carr account for the other session's original, I Couldn't Live Without You, a sure-fire jazz offering. It becomes a swinging tandem on Foolin' Myself: Hammett's open-bell gem of a solo punctuating Amanda's soliloquy. Johnson's clarinet shares the spotlight on Ellington's What Am I Here For? which for years was the closing theme on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. Finally, the Trap tenderly closes as Hadley's brushes delicately bossa-around, giving sway to Wilkins' Brazilian declaration that there will be No More Blues in Amanda's Carr-load of delicacies." --- Earnie Santosuosso, The Boston Globe
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