Rosalie Genay & Rebecca Nash
Album: Realms
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 10
Website: http://rosaliegenay.com/music

Jazz albums built around the songs of iconic rock performers are all the rage at the present time. This debut album from Rosalie Genay and Rebecca Nash is released at the same time as Barb Jungr's Hard Rain* (the music of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen) and Christine Tobin's 1000 Kisses Deep (songs by Leonard Cohen). Genay (vocals) and Nash (keyboards) also explore the Leonard Cohen songbook, but additionally include interpretations of three songs by Tom Waits - and an excellent job they make of it!

The high quality of the tracks on Realms demonstrates how careful song-selection, sensitive arrangements and top quality performance can add depth and meaning to even oft-covered tracks such as Cohen's Suzanne and Bird on a Wire. Having seen Rosalie and Rebecca perform these songs live, as a duo, I can also vouch for the capacity of their singing and playing to capture a mood, and an audience. On the album, the songs are enhanced further by the sensitive addition of Andrew Bain (percussion), Jules Jackson (bass) and Leo Richardson (saxophone) to most tracks.

Rosalie Genay is a fluid and evocative singer who originates from the Netherlands (some tracks include sections of Dutch lyrics) - she also studied in Sydney, Australia. She has a clear, unaffected delivery and no distinctive vocal mannerisms to detract from her delivery; the result is that she gives maximum weight to the meaning and emotional sense of the lyrics (particularly important with a singer-poet like Cohen). Rebecca Nash has a background in both classical piano and jazz, having studied at Trinity College for her Masters. Her style is also pure and untrammelled. Her improvisations are economical and tasteful, with no attempts at flashy technique and no reliance on hackneyed jazz phrases. It is perhaps one of the attractions of exploring the new Great North American Songbook that modern jazz performers are able to avoid the repetition inherent in playing older jazz standards.

Of the five Leonard Cohen songs, the more overtly popular tunes seem to work particularly well. You Know Who I Am is a fairly straight reading of the original but taken further by inventive piano and sax solos, which explore the song structure and take it in new directions. Bird on a Wire is tastefully jazzed up by being set to a latin (bossa nova) beat, providing space for Rosalie to improvise around the refrain, rather than just singing it straight. Rebecca's Fender Rhodes solo is typically lightly swinging and tightly structured. There are two versions of Suzanne - a slower English version and a slightly faster on with Dutch lyrics. They are sung fairly straight to the originals - but it is a measure of the quality of the musicians that the two piano solos are very different, but equally complementary to the song. Who by Fire is sung as a sultry, smoky piece of jazz, propelled along by a double-time drum rhythm, (which gives Andrew Bain a chance to stretch out), while opening up for the electric piano solo and for Leo Richardson to blow a little on his sax solo. Finally, If It Be Your Will is a ballad with, again, a faster, stuttering underpinning rhythm.

The three Tom Waits tracks, are all taken as ballads. Sins Of My Father is quite a straight, rock-style reading, with another strong jazz piano solo from Rebecca. A slow, cool sax solo introduces Yesterday is Here, leading into a torchy vocal from Rosalie, and another sax solo before the closing verses. Green Grass is another cool, intimate piece of club jazz, which builds from an initial percussion beat with the gradual addition of bass and then saxophone, giving maximum space for Rosalie to explore every nuance of the lyrics.

Finally, mention should be made of Family of Things, an original composition by Nash and Genay. Again, a slow ballad, it builds upon the lessons learnt from the duo's exploration of the cover songs, to show how Rebecca and Rosalie have evolved their own style. This is a piece of contemporary jazz which demonstrates how meaningful lyrics can be enhanced by creative arrangements and crisp, challenging but lyrical solos without falling into cliché or stylistic plagiarism. It encapsulates the approach of Genay and Nash - tasteful, poetic and swinging. This really is a cracking debut album for the duo - lets hope there will be many more to follow!

* see Fatea review of Hard Rain for more information.

Martin Price