Jackie Allen Men In My Life CD

Jackie Allen has a warm voice and a wide interest in musical styles. The basic plot for The Men in My Life was that Allen pays tribute to the men in her life, the musical influences and inspirations rather than the personal ones. Although quite capable of singing jazz standards, she really stretches herself on this set, not only in her repertoire (which along the way includes songs by Paul Simon, Burt Bacharach, and Sting) but in the style, which ranges from relatively straight-ahead jazz to pop. The arrangements contain some surprises, and Kurt Elling makes a welcome guest appearance on "The Bad and the Beautiful." One needs a bit of an open mind toward pop and rock music, but having that, these interpretations by the Chicago-based Allen are easy to take and quite creative. ~ Scott Yanow

"She is, first and foremost, totally honest. You'll believe every word she says. Whatever you call this rare and special quality, Jackie has it, making her one of that select cadre of storytellers." -- Dick LaPalm "An Amazing, amazing CD." --Rick Kogan, WGN Radio"Allen is more breathily sexy, in the Diane Krall mode, than we remembered her. Her varied set included vintage Antonio Carlos Jobim and Paul Simon and, most memorably, an oh-so-slow reading of the 1940 Rube Bloom-Johnny Mercer classic, 'Fools Rush In.'" --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, but Allen pulls it off beautifully (not having the benefit of a second take, Allen and the band did it equally well live at her CD-release concert.) The mood created by the instrumentation is expectedly Spanish; what surprises is the Moor-like quality within Allen's scatting. Also noteworthy are the talents of guitarist John Moulder, who runs the gamut of soft acoustic work to hard-edged electric, making him an ideal choice for a jazz album incorporating tunes from the rock genre (one wonders how he would have handled Jimi Hendrix's "Manic Depression," which as recorded but cut from the final mix). In a bit of whimsy, Allen presents her own composition, "You Could Be Fred," a tribute to the Freds in her life-Astaire and Flintstone; an upbeat tune with lyrics straight from the boomer pop-culture lexicon. Done as a ballad, "Fools Rush In" exposes the soft, reflective side of Allen's voice. Despite the album's title, men play a subordinate role, for this CD clearly blonds to Jackie Allen, sho