A Club Date for Songs Embellished by Reflections

from the Amazon.com Web page for the recording being discussed

If nothing else, Live at the Jazz Bakery, provides an interesting document of jazz practices over the last half century. Released by Conawago Records this past spring, the album features vocalist Anne Phillips performing with the trio of Roger Kellaway on piano, Chuck Berghoffer on bass, and Phillips’ husband Bob Kindred on tenor saxophone. There are ten vocal selections, seven of which were composed by Phillips, one in partnership with Paula Brody. Woven among these performances Phillips delivers an autobiographical account of the progress of her career after the release of her debut album, Born to be Blue, in 1959.

For many this approach to content will probably be appealing, at least for a single listening. However, those who take a more serious approach to both performance and history may be disturbed by at least some of the flaws. Without trying to rank-order those flaws, it is worth beginning with the fact that the (limited) text on the package never gives the date of the gig. Assuming that listeners know that the Jazz Bakery is in Los Angeles is a lesser “sin of omission.” More serious on that score is that, while Phillips’ narration is both well-delivered and usefully informative, her vocal work reveals weaknesses that cannot be ignored, particularly where pitch and phonemes are concerned. Given that her instrumentalists provide a consistently solid sense of tonality, Phillips can probably be called to task for not enough listening while singing.

Nevertheless, the substance of her narration has an abundance of vignettes and factual gems; and many will probably find that substance to be “worth the price of admission.”