Help me, I think I’m falling

I saw Karrin Allyson earlier this year at Jazz Lives, the now-annual Jazz FM fundraiser. I remember a petite woman with a lush, throaty voice who sang with great emotional expression and a sense of humour. (If the two sound mutually exclusive, it’s because she performed two songs.) She had the audience hanging on to her every breath.

Wild For You, unfortunately, seems to be her “pop” album. I’m not sure why Stacey Kent’s covers of the great songwriters of the ’70s work for me, but this one doesn’t. I do like her version of Joni Mitchell’s “Help Me” -- probably because Mitchell's songwriting is a bit whimsical in the first place -- but the jazzed-up “Wild World” (the Cat Stevens tune) makes me cringe. This is very much a studio album. Everything is too perfect and bland, which goes against everything I like about jazz.

Nevertheless, I recognize that I’m not the core audience for this CD (file under adult contemporary, please). I still hope to see Ms. Allyson perform again at the next Jazz Lives because she’s a knockout live.

Karrin Allyson website
Karrin Allyson on MySpace