Customer Reviews

Music Moves

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Barbara Clairdee French, aka "Clairdee," has been a fixture on the San Francisco Bay Area jazz scene for 25 years. You may not have heard, or heard of her - you probably haven't - but Clairdee is one of the very best of our contemporay jazz vocalists. The fact that she has only recorded three albums says a lot more about today's music industry than it does about her. "Music Moves," recorded in 2005, is her most recent record.

Clairdee has a big, bold, brassy contralto voice with a little smoke in the lower register. She articulates and phrases well and she can swing like the proverbial garden gate. When Clairdee gets cranked up, she can tear the roof off the joint, and then burn the building down - and that's important here, because "Music Moves" is a live album.

"Music Moves" was recorded at Yoshi's, a Japanese restaurant and jazz club in Oakland - yeah, it's an odd combination, (well, not really, jazz is huge in Japan and American jazzers routinely sell out when they tour the island nation), but Yoshi's is a Bay Area institution and one of the premier jazz venues on the West Coast. Let me tell you, if you've got the blues, a Clairdee show will cure you - she has so much fun in front of an audience that it's contagious - and "Music Moves" captures that emotion and energy almost perfectly.

If you are a fan of the standards repertoire, you'll be familiar with most of the songs on "Music Moves" - but Clairdee's arrangements and delivery make them new. She kicks off the set with the best version of "Yes Sir, That's My Baby," since Etta Jones' - and her version of "Summertime" is as good as, and completely different from Patricia Barber's, (whose version is pretty - shall I say - "unusual"). Clairdee just eats these chestnuts up - along with songs like "Cheek to Cheek," "Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars," "All the Way, " and Denise LaSalle's stomp down blues, "Someone Else is Steppin' In."

The band, led by pianist Ken French, (Clairdee's husband and her arranger), is top notch. It takes some work to keep up with Clairdee, but Mr French, saxman Charles McNeal, bassist Ron Belcher and drummer Deszon Claiborne handle the job with aplomb.

The sonics are decent: Clairdee's voice is front and center. Unfortunately the band is a little too far back in the mix for my taste - but not so far that you can't feel the energy of the performance.

If you haven't heard Clairdee before, "Music Moves" is a great introduction to a singer who should be far better known.

If you have a chance to see, hear this wonderful singer, run, and if she asks for requests, try The BOY FROM IPANEMA.