(vocal jazz) [WEB] Carol Welsman - Alone Together - 2015, FLAC (tracks), lossless

After «Lucky To Be Me Although» Carol Welsman has moved to the Los Angeles area, she is best known in her native Canada. While frequently identified with smooth jazz, she has also recorded vintage standards and can swing in straight-ahead jazz settings, too. Her father was a big jazz fan with a large record collection, introducing his daughter to jazz. Not only did she hear his records, but from the age of 12 she often accompanied him to concerts, developing a love for the singing of Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, and Mel Tormé. Welsman played guitar from the age of ten, accompanying her singing of bossa novas and folk music. She began to perform jazz more in her late teens. Welsman attended the Berklee College of Music during 1980-1981 and studied voice in France with Christiane Legrand. She started the Welcar Music label in Toronto, recording her debut CD, Lucky to Be Me, in 1995. She performed throughout Canada and also worked as a jazz vocal professor at the University of Toronto. During 2004-2005 she toured in Japan, Italy, and Brazil in addition to Canada and worked a bit in Los Angeles as a singer/pianist, but Carol Welsman has yet to become well known in the U.S. despite being a household name in Canada.
Early reviews have cited ALONE TOGETHER as the album that will cement Welsman’s ascendency to the upper levels of the contemporary jazz vocal world.

About the songs
EXCERPTS FROM ALONE TOGETHER LINER NOTES
BY REX REED
The famous Sammy Cahn-Axel Stordahl-Paul Weston standard DAY BY DAY is the only song with the strength to survive a 60-minute flop called I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, with Broderick Crawford as a gangster with a passion for writing song lyrics.
IT MIGHT AS WELL BE SPRING is the evergreen from State Fair the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein had no faith in, reserving their misguided enthusiasm for That’s For Me. It’s been sung by everyone from Sinatra to Sting, but never with as much poignancy as Carol brings to the table here.
Frank Loesser’s SAND IN MY SHOES, introduced by Connie Boswell in a 1941 flop called Something for the Boys, gets a florid flourish so tropical you can almost feel the rush of a cool wave brushing your sunburned sandals.
Gertrude Lawrence never did the proper justice to MY SHIP, the Kurt Weill / Ira Gershwin classic from Lady in the Dark, but Carol is so connected to her material that she sets the record straight at last. The gorgeous trumpet solo is by Wallace Roney.
The after-midnight mood of the entire collection is personified by the title tune, ALONE TOGETHER, a celebration of the eternal songwriting talents of Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz that also provides an unimpeachable illustration of Carol’s fluidity, conviction and musical savvy.
On every Carol Welsman album, you can expect the unexpected…she peppers the landscape with a revelation I’ve never heard before. The big one here is DISAPPOINTED, an adventure in time and tempo with the quirky wit of Eddie Jefferson’s lyrics set to a Charlie Parker sax solo from a section of George Gershwin’s Lady Be Good… Positively dazzling.
Back to a mood of moss-covered introspection, IF THE MOON TURNS GREEN, a Bernie Hanighen jazz artifact she recorded years ago with guitarist Oscar Castro-Neves, is the perfect jazz aria much beloved by Carmen McRae.
Enhanced by the superb rhythm section of Rufus Reid on bass and drummer Lewis Nash, Carol preserves it in amber.
YOU TAUGHT MY HEART TO SING is Sammy Cahn again, with music composed by McCoy Tyner, with patrician guitar chords by Jay Azzolina.
Another favorite jazz stylist, the late singer Joe Derise, is responsible for the funk and throb of THE BLUES ARE OUT OF TOWN, with co-writer Marcia Hillman.
On an exquisite I DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT YOU, the sterling-silver collaboration by Duke Ellington and Bob Russell from 1944, Carol travels the curves and contours of a marvelous memory piece with no detours.
And finally, Jule Styne’s KILLING TIME features the final heartbreaking lyric ever written by the great Carolyn Leigh—another example of Carol’s passion for under-exposed songs worth hearing.

Carol Welsman - vocals, piano
Rufus Reid - bass
Lewis Nash - drums
Wallace Roney - trumpet
with
Jay Azzolina - guitar (## 03, 06, 08)
Steven Kroon - percussion (# 03)