Madeleine Peyroux: Bare Bones

Bare Bones is the fifth studio album from Athens, Georgia born traditional American Jazz singer Madeleine Peyroux. The album consists of 11 freshly penned tunes all firmly entrenched in good old fashioned traditional jazz and blues.

“Instead” kicks of this album with a brushing snare keeping perfect time behind timeless tinkling ivories, slow sliding guitar and Billie Holiday styled crooning. This is perhaps the best track on the album and despite the fact that the actual lyrics are quite positive; it is the one most evocative of those depressive slow jazz standards.

“Bare Bones” is packed with Shakespearian mentions and a soft reverberating organ fills in between the slow ticking beat picked out on the acoustic guitar.

On my first listen, I considered the remainder of the album to be a little weaker after these first 2 great tracks, but having had it on repeat for a few days soaking up that smooth jazz vibe; I’m getting to grips with the album as a whole now.

This is the soundtrack to the best dinner parties in 2009

Randy Newman: Harps and Angels

I suspect many people these days will be more familiar with Randy Newman through his film scores than his back catalogue of albums (predominantly from the 1970’s). The songs he has provided for various films, especially Pixar films, and his Oscar for “If I didn’t have you” from Monsters Inc, are fully representative of his distinctive and often caustic style. Harps and Angels is true to the piano led compositions from these films

Corinne Bailey Rae: Corinne Bailey Rae

Although Corinne received a lot of press at the beginning of the year proclaiming her to be the new sound of 2006, the album is actually a timeless soul and jazz classic that could really have been released in any of the last 50 or next 50 years without sounding out of place. Beautiful sad, lonely, and passionate. Most reviewers’ favourite comparison is with Billie Holiday and I probably wouldn’t argue too much.