Loyal readers of this site will of course be familiar with Deborah J. Carter and her music, since her 'Round Moonlight album has been reviewed here some time ago.
Her new album Girl-Talking! is a live album, recorded on three successive days in April, 2003 in the dutch jazzclub Pannonica in The Hague. Deborah is accompanied by the same musicians that also laid the fine musical background on 'Round Moonlight, i.e. Coen Molenaar (piano), Mark Zandveld (bass) and Enrique Firpi (drums). The overall sound is just what you would associate while listening to a small band in an intimate jazz club.
Girl-Talking! features twelve covers and two original compositions co-written by Deborah.
The covers are a successful mixture of well-known standards, some obscure jazz songs and some pop songs recited as jazz songs.
The opener Rogers' & Hammerstein's My Favourite Things is featured as a staggeringly swinging version with a great electric piano solo by Coen and sets the standard of things to come on this album.
Done in great uptempo style Deborah really makes Horace Silver's Sister Sadie her own song. And she also adds her magic to Billy Joel's New York State Of Mind to breathe new life into this pop song. Although I was never very fond of song by Lennon/McCartney, I must admit that Deborah brings a new dimension to the old chestnut Yesterday by adding her own arrangement...and suddenly Yesterday isn't such a hackneyed song anymore.
Donald Fagan's Between The Raindrops gets the special Deborah Carter treatment too. And you just know that that's the way this song has longed for to be recorded all the time.
Of course Deborah scores some Brownie points from me with the inclusion of a song by my favourite jazz singer Carmen Lundy. Perfect Stranger from Carmen's debut album gets a well deserved rendition and shows both Carmen's quality as songwriter and Deborah's ability to adopt other people's songs.
Other fine songs include Deborah's tribute to the late Lionel Hampton (Red Top), a cover of Manhattan Transfer's Ten Minutes Till The Savages Come or Charlie Parker's You've Proven Your Point. The two self penned songs, Ten Minutes In Paris and Sabado (the latter a great slightly latin-inspired song where Deborah's vocal performance sounds like scatting if you don't listen carefully enough), finish an musically and vocally inspiring album and certainly makes your mouth water to go out and see Deborah and her band live in performance.