In hindsight, June Christy’s bewitching Ballads for Night People can be perceived as vaguely prescient of Nancy Marano’s most recent endeavor, Sure Thing (Blue Port J007; 63:00). Stylistically, Christy and Marano are worlds apart. Yet like the misty Miss C., Marano is a singer best appreciated within the quiet folds of evening. On this cozy collection her voice is infused with the seductive dim of twilight. Apart from a pair of her own compositions, the lovely “Very Close to Love” (crafted with help from Tom Harrell and Duncan Lamont) and the less inspired “Easier to Say Goodbye,” Marano focuses on familiar standards in less than familiar settings. Cole Porter’s “So in Love,” so often approached like a slippery alp that must be conquered, is instead treated as a leisurely stroll through the magical world of new romance. On “The Man I Love” she effectively underscores the lyric’s intrinsic yearning with a subtle yet fervent hint of sexual frustration. Hidden among the fine old chestnuts is a superbly gentle version of Alan Broadbent and Dave Frishberg’s underappreciated “Heart’s Desire.” Saving the best for last, Marano closes with a medley of “Never Let Me Go” and “Goodbye” that brilliantly counterbalances the before and after of romantic desperation. The listener is left with a shadowy image of a woman who, having fortified herself with something cool, will not go gently into that good night.
Originally PublishedRelated Posts
Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee: Backwater Blues
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading

Jonathan Butler: The Simple Life
Jonathan Butler’s optimistic music belies a dirt-poor childhood growing up in a South Africa segregated by apartheid. Live in South Africa, a new CD and DVD package, presents a sense of the resulting inner turmoil, mixed with dogged resolve, that paved the way to his status as an icon in his country and successful musician outside of it. Looking back, the 46-year-old Butler says today, the driving forces that led to his overcoming apartheid-the formal policy of racial separation and economic discrimination finally dismantled in 1993-were family, faith and abundant talent.
“When we were kids, our parents never talked about the ANC [African National Congress] or Nelson Mandela,” he says. Butler was raised as the youngest child in a large family. They lived in a house patched together by corrugated tin and cardboard, in the “coloreds only” township of Athlone near Cape Town. “They never talked about struggles so we never knew what was happening.”
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading

Scott LaFaro
Previously unavailable recordings and a new bio illuminate the legend of bassist Scott LaFaro
Kurt Elling: Man in the Air
Nate Chinen makes the argument that Kurt Elling is the most influential jazz vocalist of our time