Singer and pianist Liane Carroll occupies a curious position at the intersection of jazz, soul and the classier end of MOR. You’d expect her albums to serve as simple showcases for her exhilarating live shows, but her producer James McMillan has helped to turn each LP into an elegant song suite. Together with a fine band (including guitarist Mark Jaimes and pianist Mark Edwards) she recasts jazz standards as soul tunes: for instance, Skylark, one of three Hoagy Carmichael compositions here, is transformed into a quiet storm ballad, all slinky R&B guitar licks and lush Fender Rhodes chords, a trick she also pulls off with a slow-burning, Latin-tinged version of You Don’t Know What Love Is. Conversely, she reframes pop tunes by the likes of Stevie Wonder, Tom Waits and Dusty Springfield as weightless, drum-free pieces of chamber music, her elegant vocal improvisations eking new truths from familiar lyrics each time.
