Sarah Thorpe supplies a healthy mix of her own tunes with some rich arrangements of modern material with a team of Olivier Hutman/p, Darryl Hall/b, John Betsch/dr and guests TK Blue/ss-as, Josiah Woodson-Ronald Baker/tp and Ismael Nobour/dr. She delivers a dark mood on Randy Weston’s “Pretty Strange” and displays flexibility on Carmen Lundy’s R&Bish “To Be Loved By You”. A delicate read of Horace Silver’s “Lonely Woman” with Hutman is rich, as is her own dramatic “The Wind”. She flexes her muscles with the horns on a modal “Sunday Daydreaming” and her rich “Sweet Love Serenade” with a minor mooded “Deep Blue Love” displaying rich harmonics. Skilled sounds.
Gina Kronstadt has a strong and husky voice as she teams with some of LA’s finest in John Beasley-Nicholas Semrad/key, Benjamin Shepherd/b, Joel Taylor/dr, Michael Stever/tp and Bob Sheppard/sax-ww-str. All of the material is her own, and gives a wanderlust hued “Maybe I Trusted” with Stever, while the two get muted and noir on the title pieces. Synthesized drapery flows around on the tender “The Threat Of Love” and she pleads with a chorus on the soulful “Who’ll Save You”. Wide display of emotions.
Lisa Bell comes across like a latter day Nicolette Larson or Linda Ronstadt, writing her own material with a soulful pop team of Eric Moon/key, Larry Thompson/perc, George Lacson/b, Ray Smith/g, Dexter Payne/sax and some guests. With a humming Hammond, she digs deep on “Take Me To The Other Side” and is funky with Payne’s tenor during “The Road IS Always Longer”. Blue-eyed blues take place on a breeze “I Don’t Know What You Want From Me” and “I Can’t Stand The Rain” while in an acoustic mood, she is folksy on “My Love” and “Get In The Flow”. Vintage 70s singer/songwriter feel.