Amber Weeks’ New Album Honors Nancy Wilson

Cover of the album being discussed (courtesy of Kate Smith Promotions)

I first encountered jazz vocalist Amber Weekes a little over three years ago, after her ’Round Midnight album was remixed, remastered, and re-orchestrated for a new release entitled ’Round Midnight Re-Imagined. At that time I credited her with “a solid command of the torch song repertoire” with an ear for pitch that was “for the most part, reliable, only occasionally drifting for what are probably intentional rhetorical purposes.” This month began with the release of her latest album, whose full title is A Lady With A Song: Amber Weekes Celebrates Nancy Wilson; and, after having listening to its thirteen tracks, I have to confess that I do not feel quite as charitable.

I am still trying to work out why this is the case. I was certainly aware of Wilson during my student days. However, that was a time when there were almost no jazz albums in the house and jazz on the campus radio station tended to be a late-night affair. In those days, if I was asked if I had a favorite jazz vocalist, my response of “Ella Fitzgerald” was basically a reflex!

To be more specific about the new Weekes album, I found I was less forgiving where pitch was concerned. That may have been because the overall shape of each of the tunes never had much to offer. “What a Little Moonlight Can Do” provides a good example. The prevailing rhetoric here is coyness, but that never seems to register in Weekes’ delivery. If she had a different idea of how to approach the text, it managed to elude my attention.

At the end of the day, my memories of the instrumental accompaniment made for stronger impact. The arrangements allowed for extended solo takes on almost all of the tracks. Perhaps my classical influences may have been interfering; but I was particularly drawn by the solos taken by violinist Mark Cargill on both Irving Berlin’s “Suppertime” and “Wave” (which was the title track on The Antonio Carlos Jobim Songbook album). To be fair, however, Cargill provided all the arrangements for A Lady With A Song and conducted all of the tracks (as was the case on the Round Midnight Re-Imagined album).