|
| |
Catherine Russell
Sentimental Streak
(World Village)
First Appeared in The Music Box, February 2008, Volume 15, #2
Written by John Metzger
Tue February 5, 2008, 08:30 AM CST
Catherine Russell is blessed with a powerful voice, and unlike many rising
stars, she knows how to use it. She doesn’t try to cram an onslaught of notes
into a space that is too small, and she sings from her heart and soul rather
than from her mind. It helps, of course, that she has been floating around the
industry for years, supporting the likes of David Bowie, Paul Simon, and Jackson
Browne. Throughout her sophomore set Sentimental Streak, she retreats
from some of the more contemporary tunes — such as Sam Cooke’s You Were Made
for Me and the Grateful Dead’s New Speedway Boogie — that had dotted
the landscape of her debut Cat. In the process, she freed herself to
focus upon the old-time jazz and blues songs that she undoubtedly has heard
since her youth. To her credit, the resulting affair is decidedly more focused.
If Sentimental Streak sounds, at times, as if it is steeped in the
eclecticism of New Orleans tradition, it’s because Russell’s father Luis, for a
few years at least, led the band that backed Louis Armstrong, one of the
Crescent City’s greatest legends. Using an arrangement that was conceived by her
dad, the album appropriately opens with the brassy swing of So Little Time
(So Much to Do). Elsewhere, Russell delivers a wonderful rendition of Hoagy
Carmichael’s New Orleans, and although it long ago became a timeless
standard, she wastes no time in claiming it as her own.
Even so, there’s more to Sentimental Streak than initially meets the
eye. Curiously, Russell tapped Larry Campbell, an alumnus of Bob Dylan’s band,
to produce the affair, and he, in turn, assembled a stellar cast of characters —
Ollabelle’s Byron Isaacs and trumpeter Steven Bernstein, among them — to support
her vocals. At times, though, they subtly steal some of her thunder. The biggest
problem with Sentimental Streak, however, is that the sounds of a distant
era are executed with such extraordinary precision that it begins to feel as if
the endeavor’s sole purpose is simply to pay tribute to the past through
replication rather than reinterpretation. As impeccable as the music happens to
be, there is, to put it bluntly, too much reverence contained in the approach
that Russell and Campbell took, so much so that even the pair of new tunes that
she tackles — her own Luci and accordion player Rachelle Garniez’s Broken Nose — blend in a little too neatly with the rest of the set.
For all of the subtle twists and turns that are given to the material, no
true risks are taken anywhere on Sentimental Streak. Its arrangements are
lovely, and Russell’s vocals effortlessly conjure moods that exhibit crushing
heartache (South to a Warmer Place), feisty determination (Oh Yes,
Take Another Guess), and playful sexuality (My Daddy’s Got a Brand New
Way to Love). Yet, it also doesn’t add anything to or distinguish itself
from the long line of recordings and performances by the likes of Ella
Fitzgerald, Bessie Smith, and Pearl Bailey from which it was constructed. 
Of Further Interest...
Danielia Cotton - Rare Child
Corinne Bailey Rae - Corinne Bailey Rae / self-titled
Curtis Stigers - Real Emotional
Sentimental Streak is available from
Amazon.com. To order, Click Here!
For Canadian orders, please
Click Here!
For UK orders, please
Click Here!
Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2008 The Music Box
|
