Jacintha - Jacintha Is Her Name (2003) [SACD]

Julie London, the legendary torch song singer and pop balladeer of the 60s and early 70s, passed away in Los Angeles two years ago. The singer who had a huge hit with her version of Cry Me A River still retains a large fan base worldwide and has always been one of Jacintha's favorite singers. It only seems natural that for this, her fourth album for Groove Note, the sensual and talented Jacintha, no mean balladeer herself, has chosen to record and dedicate an album to Julie.

"This album is a sheer joy to listen to from the first note. This may be Jacintha's best album yet. The silky, smooth, and sensuous voice of Jacintha is reproduced with an utterly natural quality, revealing every nuance of her phenomenal intonation, phrasing, breath control, and vocal modulation." - Dave Glackin, Positive Feedback Online

Inspired mainly by Ms. London's first Liberty album, Julie Is Her Name and its spare guitar and acoustic bass formats, Jacintha and arranger/pianist Bill Cunliffe (recently nominated for a Jazz Arranging Grammy) have come up with a spectacular new record. Using the guitar and bass combo as a basic springboard, the album has taken some of the songs most closely associated with Ms. London (e.g. Cry Me A River, and some not so familiar like Light My Fire), and transformed them into the kind of material that Jacintha handles best. Intimate, sexy, seductive.

A couple of tunes do utilize a trio behind Jacintha but the great majority of the songs stay faithful to the guitar/bass combo and two instrument concept with the additional twist of using some different instruments in the arrangements. (e.g. sax and bass for Willow Weep For Me, sax and piano for Something Cool and piano and bass for Cry Me A River). Jacintha herself delivers some definitive performances including a classic version of Something Cool and her cover of The Doors' Light My Fire.

The very spare instrumental arrangements also lend themselves to extremely high quality audiophile sound and Joe Harley (producer) and Mike Ross (engineer) have outdone themselves on this recording, creating sonics and fidelity that are some of the best ever from Groove Note (or any other label for that matter).