Star Power: Glenn Miller CD - Import

'" --Mike Drew, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel********Chicago Jazz Magazine Reviewed by Theodore Williams July/August 2003 Jackie Allen's latest release, The Men in My Life, pays homage to the plethora of men that have made an impact on her music career, including some of the usual suspects-Sinatra and Jobim-and the not-so-obvious, including Sting, James Taylor, Paul Simon, her supporting players on the CD, and a handful of others. Searching for "new standards" Allen supplements proven standards with three pop/rock tunes of the 70s and 80s. Though the "feel" one associates with these tunes will prevent them from being fully indoctrinated into the jazz canon, her rendition of Sting's "Tea In The Sahara" is a particularly fine effort. Listening to Allen's breathy voice, one can easily conjure up images of wind blowing across Saharan sand, and her distant Arabesque phrasing during the hallucinogenic instrument portion of the tune (highly charged by Allen's bassist and now husband Hans Sturm) create the proper ambience for this highly stylized tune, which won't be recorded frequently, nor with Allen's excellence. Other standouts include a fine version of Chick Corea's "Spain," a medium Bossa of "Come Fly With Me" "The Bad And The Beautiful" (a Mark Murphy composition sung as a duet with Kurt Elling), and "Dindi," where (as in "Tea In The Sahara") Allen augments the instrumentation with her voice, this time toward a percussive/reed-like effect." Unlike most singers these days, Jackie Allen takes chances. On "Spain" for example, Allen's voice doubles the guitar in a rapid flurry that ends in an up and multi-tempo Latin rendition-a train wreck waiting to happen, ...