Now 41, the English singer-pianist has built a growing reputation across a decade-&-a-half + worth of discography.
String arrangements collaborating with orchestrator Callum Au wrap the core band sound in lushness. It’s instantly preferable to Au’s own new record issued recently, Sing Seven Seas.
Each day I pray for evening
Just to be with you
Together at last at twilight time
‘Twilight Time’ is the song I warmed to most – Jimmy Dorsey did the Buck Ram and The Three Suns number in the 1940s with foxtrot refrain vocal by Teddy Walters.
An arrangement – that summons shades of the style of Alan Broadbent – of Jerome Kern’s 1920s song’ ‘Can’t Help Lovin Dat Man’ is 5 star and also worth significant replay.
While occasionally the album teeters too much in the direction of music theatre and Rat Pack mannerisms, that isn’t really an issue as it rescues itself and it’s not saccharine at all or too Bublé-like mercifully as that would be another demographic entirely.
The bossa nova spin on Chicago’s ‘If You Leave Me Now‘ featuring guest vocalist Pamina Beroff isn’t the album’s strongest suit nor is the even more toothsome duet on ‘No Two People’. Beroff is French and graduated from London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2017 whose own album Unfolding involved famous jazz Belgian, Éric Legnini.
Covering ‘It’s Not Unusual’ might have been a misstep but proves it isn’t given the fine solo by Aussie ace the Gene Ammons and Stanley Turrentine loving Brandon Allen. His solo on it is the best instrumental episode. I also liked Anthony’s vocalese on ‘Pennies From Heaven’ a good deal.
- Herts to herts: hear Anthony Strong at the Cowshed, Sandon in Hertfordshire on 25 September
