Ian Shaw - singer / songwriter extraordinaire
Just picked up a copy of the new album by Ian Shaw "Lifejacket" and found it to be an inspired set that breaks the mould of jazz singers who stick to the Great American Songbook. Some wonderful song sketches, met with a soulful, heartfelt delivery.
On it he meets other genres with songs of his childhood and youth spent in Wales as well as biographical bits about his life in London.
One wonders if this is a way forward for jazz singers - to build a repertoire of their own material once they have mastered the rudiments of the genre. In parts, this album is actually closer to the territory established by singer-songwriters.
Many in jazz have been plundering the likes of Drake, Mitchell and Radiohead for years - maybe now the tide has turned and some can push the envelope with their own stories. After all, the jazz musician will always have a certain oblique and humourous side that many others miss.
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Ian Shaw
On a good night (and he doesn't appear to have any other kind) Ian Shaw is truly without peer. He has the rare ability to peek and poke at the catalogues of others and produce truly fabulous and remarkable versions of songs, many of which are long overlooked in their original form.
Example: - Rickie Lee Jones's The Horses, Gilbert O'Sullivan's Alone Again (Naturally) and - gasp - Mike Batt's Wombling Song (you I kid not) - all of which, in his hands, are spine tingling and most of all, heartbreaking. (I should add that he has been known to do Don't You Want Me, but judging by the posts elsewhere on this site, he may wish to keep quiet about that. And I haven't heard him sing it, so I can't possibly comment. But I'm sure it's very nice.)
If you're new to Ian Shaw, check out his recording of this Lennon & McCartney fave. It's from the long deleted album Famous Rainy Day. Don't look for it, it's not there any more.
Blimey, he's on YouTube...
He gives good Joni Mitchell too.....
Whole LP of Joni covers came out last year, perhaps getting "lost", as Herbie Hancock did his at much the same time. Both broadly "file under jazz", completely and utterly different, both exceptionally good.