Two for tea…
Pianist Alex Sjobeck joins together with bassist David Baker for a collection of intimate originals of chambered jazz. Sjobeck’s piano touch mixes elements of classical and fragrant modern jazz, rich around Baker’s reflective pulse on “Answer Song” with the two lurking around together on ”Aravah” and dancing around each other on “Stories.” Sjobeck supplies a single note patter to Baker’s intro on the dark “Indigo” while the two bop to bowed and picked notes on “With A Naked Heart”. Baker reaches for high pitches on his solo for “Like a Pop Song” and gets bluesy on “Liberation”. Quiet conversations.
Husky toned vocalist Petra Van Nuis teams up with guitarist Andy Brown for an intimate collection of tunes inspired by and dedicated to the calendar girl of mood music, Julie London. The late night mood that made London’s fog famous is captured here very well, as Van Nuis is delicate around the strings on “Something Cool” and enunciates with ecstasy around a desultory “You’ve Changed” and “Cry Me A River”. Brown frames each song with aplomb, sometimes leading into the song and other moments adding slight pastel strokes and pickings, as on “The Meaning of the Blues” and “Blues In The Night”. Sounds of pillow talk.