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Mark Jennett
The Way I Am
Nice Work Records NICE 1
'A
lovely collection of standards' is how Ian Shaw refers to this album, and
he's spot on, as usual: give or take the odd Randy Newman song and a closing
blues (Willie Dixon's 'Little Red Rooster'), this is exactly what talented
debutant singer Mark Jennett serves up on this carefully performed but lively
and consistently listenable album.
Jennett is not one of those intensely emotional singers who wear their bleeding hearts on their sleeves; he is, rather, of the Ella school, relying on faultless diction and interpretative intelligence to get the lyrics across (and his choice of standards, it must be said, is impeccable in this regard: 'Day In Day Out', 'I'll Take Romance', 'Too Marvellous for Words', 'You Go to My Head', 'Easy to Love' have seldom received more sensitive treatments, their every word made to count, their every internal rhyme subtly emphasised, their wry humour and wit skilfully drawn from them).
Given Jennett's pleasingly informal but technically assured delivery, songs such as 'The Surrey with the Fringe on Top' and 'The Song is You' reveal felicities custom may have staled for some listeners, and overall, with Robin Aspland/Barry Green (piano), Jeremy Brown (bass) and Steve Brown/Tristan Mailliot (drums) providing impeccable support, this is a wholly likeable and assured album.
Sample mp3 file
