“She is,” as the London Evening Standard put it,” one of the finest singers to perform at Ronnie’s (Ronnie Scott’s London club) since Shirley Horn.” She is Jackie Ryan and she is stunningly talented. On her latest release, You and the Night and the Music from July of last year, Ryan runs the scale of starry-eyed sentiment, love lost, and love found all over again.
Featuring the celebrated Red Holloway on tenor sax and a compact group that includes Tamir Hendelman on piano, Jeff Hamilton on drums, Christoph Luty on bass, Larry Koonse on guitar, and Carol Robbins on the jazz harp, You and the Night and the Music is an exciting album. Ryan and Holloway swing with ease from heartbreak to the sweetness of brand new love to reckless abandon and back to heartbreak without missing a beat.
It’s Jackie Ryan’s range that is immediately enchanting, though. She flows from silky smoothness to brassy liveliness, often in the same song, with the effortlessness of the most seasoned professionals. Singing from the heart and sometimes from somewhere even deeper, Ryan’s astounding range puts her at the top of the jazz vocal art and requires full attention.
This Mexican-Irish dynamo’s multilingual delivery on some of the album’s tracks smoulders with zeal and sensuality. Her interpretation of “Bésame Mucho” is good enough to steam up the windows and the following track “Let There Be Love” seems a promise to finish what she started.
Ryan’s smoky voice highlights from the opening track, Cole Porter’s “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To,” right through the high-spirited sense of discovery of “I Just Found Out About Love.” Her voice sustains with style and sentiment through some of the album’s more heart-rending songs, like the beautiful “Wild is the Wind” and the calm sway of “Moonlight.”
The album’s journey through love makes it the ideal soundtrack for an intimate night in with a loved one. In Jackie Ryan is a singer who understands the meaning of the words she sings. Her delivery is alluring, natural, and affecting. With Red Holloway’s cheeky sax accompanying Ryan’s towering vocals, You and the Night and the Music is one intelligent recording that should please all lovers of vocal jazz.
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