IN MY OWN VOICE……For a second week in a row, In My Own Voice is listed in the "Top Adds" section (#3) of the CMJ Jazz chart in the upcoming CMJ New Music Report Magazine, Issue 1085.
"Kick-ass record!". This is a great jazz recording with broad appeal.
Les French - WMEB Orono Maine
Great voice, nice arrangements, and excellent musicians!
Peter Kuller, Radio Adelaide - Australia
Vocalist Joani Taylor swings in a fashion that I want to hear, as she is comfortable being backed by a band with a mean ass Hammond B-3 player (Bob Murphy) and musicians who know how to make the joint jump. While she calls her album In My Own Voice, I had to look at the CD a few times because Taylor reminded me a lot of Monday Michiru, both in style and tone. In other words, this lady rips and anyone who wants to hear a great, powerful female jazz singer will have to buy this album immediately.
Taylor has released many albums over the years, but this is my first listen to her voice and music. She is often billed as “Canada’s first lady of the jazz ballad”, but on this album she shows she is much more than a balladeer, there’s even a bit of hip-hop flavor in her version of Paul Desmond’s “Take Five”, with a rap done in 5/4 from Jay Kin). It was unexpected, but it was definitely welcome on an album that ranges from the acid jazz vibe of the late 60’s and early 70’s to bebop. Taylor shows her experience throughout this album, able to wrap herself around the music and making it her own, and the majority of this album features original Taylor/Murphy compositions and whether it’s a passionate love song or one with a hint of the blues, you listen to her and believe in it because she most likely has felt these things, you can hear the joy, fear, pain, and pleasure with every word, line, and verse.
In My Own Voice was recorded live in the studio with everyone in the same room at one time, and it’s a probably good indication of what her live shows are like. Let’s hope she’ll perform at jazz festivals next year, showing her old fans what they’ve come to see and hear and showing new fans that all one needs to find is a powerful jazz singer who knows their craft. Taylor is someone who knows and honors the craft of jazz.
JOHN BOOK - THE RUN OFF GROOVE
“After I was at your reunion concert in Vancouver, I returned home and wrote you all a descriptive letter of my experience, putting focus on each of you, so I won’t re-write any of it now. Go back and read it again (why don’cha, as a correlative to this?) except to add a specific that re-arranged our experience last night.
I do hope you’ll forgive me that I presented the Pumpkin concert first as a marvelous recollection of the past and after that the opening of the concert of Rick and Nico as an experience of the present. I had to do this because I couldn’t get past Joani Taylor and you. When Gene and I arranged the show — some days before the birthday — I ended up watching the Joanie portion and it left me in tears. I told Gene, “I’ll never get past this, I can’t go on from here,” so by playing Rick and Nico second, we arrived at Joanie at the end and once again it demolished me. I wept for the total of its inspiration, which included her memorable singing, her appearance, her underlying physical infirmities which her song dissolved, and Nico’s passionate piano passage, which was a marvel of emotional connection. But more, I wept because Rick’s intensity of listening and the revelation of his tender, loving spirit besieged my heart and simply broke me down. The combination of Joanie, her singing and Rick’s listening in the same frame is among the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen and will never forget.
After this we embraced in the dark and silently departed, blessed with an intangible, inspiring sweetness for which there are no words. The whole of what you four gave, buoyed and sustained by Valley’s capacities, is a contribution to our lives that these words can only suggest and for which I write you now with untellable gratitude and ever-enlarging affection.” RICHARD
Jazz vocalist Joani Taylor changes things up on her latest album
In My Own Voice.
The disc features the finest musicians performing her tunes live in the studio.
Known as a master of interpreting other people’s songs this time out she co-wrote almost all of the
14 tracks. From her years as a standard-bearer for the jazz tradition Taylor knows what it takes to create a great song. Taylor fans know what to expect from her and they won’t be disappointed --- deep intense feeling operating at the highest level of artistry. Start to finish the album is a sublime exercise in jazz creativity .
*JOHN GOODMAN nsnews
Ron Keillor, booker for Odeon here, is a great one to take a chance on local film- makers and so far he's not been far wrong in his decisions either to use a film or reject it. Being supportive of west coast talent doesn't apply only to Odeon. Film-maker Wayne Sterloff has used it extensively in Creekside, especially with Dick Payne's musical score; vocal interpretation of an ancient Indian chant by singer Joani Tay- lor; roto-scope animation designed and painted by Trevor Davies; and even archi- tect Arthur Erikson doing voice-over in the
film.
Joani Taylor
wows 'em again "There is no audience!" Joani kept saying, and at least some of the time she was right. Although it was another of those Sundays with the Brackendale Gallery filled to the bursting point, such were the talents of Joani Taylor
and Ron Small that the audience-performer separation
all but disappeared.
"Com- munication" performers call it; it's the mark of greatness in all artistic endeavor, for when you are really getting across
the message, you and they become
one. And Joani, Ron and their ex- cellent band definitely were get- ting the message across. Ron was the surprise of the evening People expected a nice back-up act for Joani, but Ron sings second to nobody! He displayed a full mellow versatile voice that sometimes
stroked, sometimes blasted his listeners, and he had a sensitivity to lyrics that is rare in a jazz performer
concerned with rhythms. He reminded the
audience that the words to &Oh, Danny Boy" were those of a father to his son as he sent him off to war and then sang it so beautifully that I, for one, had to hide an embarrassed wet eye. For those of you familiar with the jaz scene in Vancouver, Ron Sma was the manager of the Rive Queen which in its day booke such greats as Josh White, Sonn Terry and Brownie Magee and
host of others. Joani, we were told, rehearse two weeks for the Brackendal concert. In an interview in Var couver magazine she said sh was so impressed with th creative freedom she felt i Brackendale when she was her in June that she went all out thi time to present what was th best of herself. Well Joani, th
best was fantastic! Joani, who has
bee associated with some of th
greatest
names in jazz (lik
Miles Davis and Cannonbal Adderley) also makes a livin singing commercials. She gav us a smattering of all those in fluences Sunday night eve belting out a few commercials t show us how our little heads ar enticed into buying corn chip and Burgie's beer. Joani als‹ sang songs written by Ann Mor tifee and Valerie Hennel and her brother, Jim Taylor. It wa definitely one of the highest per formances this writer had experienced anywhere.
Reviewed by George Evans
- Looking back at the history
of vocal LPs, one will see a particularly rare niche, that of the all-ballad voice with piano album. Prime examples of the genre include, on two particular occasions, Ella Fitzgerald (once with Ellis Larkins and once later on with Paul Smith), Stan Kenton with June Christy in a very stark and spare program unusual for the both of them, and the very special collaboration that existed briefly between Irene Kral and Alan Broadbent. Without a doubt, what can make or
break a project of this nature is not only the solo musicianship of the artists involved
but the simpatico and shared
sense of intimacy between the two featured performers Seemingly of importance is an ability to enter an almost alternate reality, where time slows and words express themselves laconically and with great passion. As performance of the standard repertoire has progressed over the last cen-tury, the ability to take tempos slower than songwriters
could ever have foreseen has evolved, and music of this variety now can take more time to unwind than most modern record executives have the patience for or even the understanding of.
Consequently, records like
these are made very seldom, and when they are, usually are not produced by a major label.
This beautiful program by Joani Taylor (voice) and Bob Murphy (piano) of Vancouver is on a par with the famous above-mentioned discs, amply filling an important void on the current recording scene. Each of these artists has a great and almost aching sensitivity, with an ability to dig deep into the words and music at hand. The program is comprised of eight songs from a variety of sources, most taking upwards of seven minutes to play from gentle start to passionate finish. The standards selected are songs that Joani Taylor wraps lovingly in her caress, while Bob Murphy wrings the last stray teardrop with his tense and spare pianistic style. The originals (of which there are two are each on a par with the songs that surround them, and are each from the pen of Murphy, a man who clearly has as much to say compositionally as in the performance of songs by others. Joani, who comes from a diverse background in Canadian pop music, was once a familiar face on television in this country. This CD marks a return of sorts to wider recognition than she has known for a time, and her return is a welcome one. Roadhouse Records should be applauded for picking this one up for wider distribution.
Selections are: "I'm Glad There Is You," "Forever Eyes,"
"Make Someone Happy." "Yesterday." "Little Bridge," "That Night," "You Don't Know Me," "Round Midnight."
Bob Murphy and Joani Taylor
Rene's bounce produces a likely winner
BY BLAIK KIRBY
At last, the CBC may have a
the backup singers, Joani Taylor,
tice run for the really big money, She provided, in fact, the musical
as a potential successor to elderly
ariety show with real star poten-
highlight of the show.
Donny Osmond. Young Rene clear-
ial. The Quebec superkid, Rene
She did it with At 17, a sensitive
simard, made his starring debut
ly has what it takes.
song about a teenager facing the
Tuesday night on the CBC English
If the CBC plays its cards right
fact that if you're not beautiful,
network in a show that looked like
you get only the leftovers.
- let us dream a little - it could
: winner
Miss Taylor's singing, in a way, wind up putting out an internation-
al hit which would go far to bal-
It didn't just have the 16-year-old
showed Simard up for the callow
ance the books for all those U.S
simard's voice, which is still excit-
though immensely likeable bounc-
Shows Canada buys, The Simard ng and piercing, though now in the
enor range. It also had lively, like-
er he is. He did do one ballad,
show could even be the big test:
made pretty with a beautiful blue
able snatches of personality from
background, but he couldn't touch
will
America
buy
out-and-out
Canadiana, without an attempt to
he kid, and fine touches of humor.
her for emotion. Instead he has
Americanize it with stars such as It had something even rarer, a
youthful vigor and bounce, a mar-
sense of fun.
Wolfman Jack? With our national
vellous smile, the kind of good
There were amusing blackout
inferiority complex, we've accept- looks she was singing about, and
ed for years that it wouldn't - but sketches from Anne Murray, Peter
hordes of squealing teenage fans to
Ustinov and (would you believe)
is it really true?
attest to his stardom.
Eagleson to brighten the
That is probably quite enough;
show, and there was a stunning bit
today's teen market doesn't put of unexpected stardom from one of much value on sensitivity, but it puts big money on bounce. And thanks to Joani, this show has
both. If you liked her work, or want to hear another sample, she'll also be heard in tonight's edition of Cana- dian Express, the new all-around-
the-map variety show. In Rene's debut, producer Alan Thicke and director Michael Watt
kept things moving,
almost too much and too fast. There were the James Angels dancers cavorting, and the Renettes back-up vocal trio, including Joani. There were some amusing moments with the
Hockey Rockers, Marcel Dionne,
Rogatien Vachon
and grandad
Boom-Boom Geoffrion. At almost all times, there was the sense of good-natured fun, not
just of pop music.
That made up for a few moments of weak comedy involving puppets and a silly-ass
announcer.
This combination could go a long, long way, and quickly. Si-
mard's managers clearly have him
Simard: the new Donny?
on the English network as a prac-
Today at 7:pm, on our Jazz Divas Show, we feature the music of Vancouver's own amazing jazz vocalist supreme, Joani Taylor.
From The BC Entertainment Hall Of Fame: "For over 50 years, her impact on the evolution and success of the Vancouver music scene has been immeasurable". streema.com/radios/play/Islands_Radio
JOANI TAYLOR: TAKE FIVE
TRACK
Take Five
ARTIST
Joani Taylor (vocals)
CD
In My Own Voice (Wet Coast Records 1780C)
Musicians: Joani Taylor (vocals), Jay Kin (MC), Ross Taggart (tenor sax), Bob Murphy (piano, organ), Miles Foxx Hill (bass), Buff Allen, Berni Arai (drums). Composed by Paul Desmond.
Recorded: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, September-October 2007
RATING: 88/100 (learn more)
This is definitely a track to separate the men from the boys. Or is it the true believers vs. posers? Maybe it's the arrogant experts vs. the fans? Traditionalists vs. the modernists?
I have deliberately set up some ambiguous labels here, as Paul Desmond's classic has been on my mind lately. I used to listen to a jazz station on my satellite radio. The past tense became necessary as the percentage of repeats became intolerable. That and the fact that their Dave Brubeck selections made it seem as though Brubeck had recorded only two songs: "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo à la Turk." It's sadly ironic whenever a groundbreaking artist is forced into some unnecessarily restricted Museum of Jazz.
All of which makes this version of "Take Five" so refreshing. Here we have the original tune updated not only with a funky vibe and Joani Taylor's sensual vocals, but also with a little Hip-Hop crosspollination, and the throw-down of MC Jay Kin. Forget the labels, this is just too much fun.
Reviewer: Mark Saleski