Amber Weekes Re-Visits 2007 Album

courtesy of Play MPE

A little less than fourteen years ago, torch singer Amber Weekes released an album of the twelve musical tracks from a promotional recording made in 2002 to introduce her talents to clubs and festivals. The album took its title from the penultimate track, a vocal performance of Thelonious Monk’s “’Round Midnight” with lyrics by Bernie Hanighen. According to Amazon.com, that album is still available. However, at the beginning of this month, she released a fully remixed, remastered, and re-orchestrated version entitled ’Round Midnight Re-Imagined. As of this writing, Amazon is only distributing the album as an MP3 download.

The original promotional release included not only the music but also Weekes’ account of vignettes inspired by stories about New York that she learned from her family. One of her major sources was a speech given by her father, Martin Weekes, entitled “There Really Was a Camelot.” The Camelot he had in mind was the Sugar Hill section of Harlem, where his parents, Wilfred and Nettie, owned the Weekes Luncheonette at 155th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue. (Martin himself was both a vocalist and a trombonist.)

The centerpiece of the original ’Round Midnight album was The Bar Suite, three tracks that unfold with almost no interruption, which Weekes dedicated to her father. The suite opened with William Barnes’ “Something Cool,” followed by two tunes composed by Harold Arlen with words by Johnny Mercer, “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)” and “The Man That Got Away.” Martin died in 2016, endowing this suite with memorial status on the new release.

Across the entire album, Weekes delivers a solid command of the torch song repertoire. Her command of pitch is, for the most part, reliable, only occasionally drifting for what are probably intentional rhetorical purposes. Personally, I was struck by how much diversity of style unfolds from beginning to end. Regular readers probably know by now that, where jazz singing is concerned, I have little tolerance for style taking precedence over substance. That “solid command” I have in mind involves just the right balance of those opposing influences; and this is an album I expect to revisit with consistent satisfaction.