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State of Bliss
Courtenay Day
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Courtenay Day sounds a like a world weary Liz Callaway - clear and
pure but slightly cracked around the edges. It’s
not a great voice but she knows what to do with it. Warm,
with an edge of vulnerability, it draws in the listener and makes him feel as though Day
is telling her stories for him alone.
On her second album Day tackles a range of material
from the last 6 decades or so with a nice mix of the familiar and less well known. She has a way of singing a lyric as though
discovering it for the first time. Ira
Gershwin and Harold Arlen’s “Dissertation On A State Of Bliss” is fresh and
tender and Johnny Mandel’s “A Time For Love” has a touching sense of
discovery about it. She manages to evoke an
unaffected air of innocence that is most affective on “Beyond Compare” – a
paean to the seemingly perfect (new?) lover - and she finds the joy in Sondheim’s
“Take Me To The World” without over-dramatizing.
She sings this in a medley with “Anyone Can Whistle,” a number whose
tender simplicity can sometimes drown in bathos. However,
Day focuses on the suggestion of hope in ‘maybe you could show me…how to be
free’ and finds genuine and affecting optimism.
The very air of openness that works on so much of the material seems to
prevent her from finding the right sense of ennui for “Something Cool” –
though she negotiates the tricky melody without mishap – and her delicate take on
Lennon and McCartney’s “I Will” is spoiled by the interpolation of the
ubiquitous “Get Here” which only shows up the clumsiness of the latter’s
lyric. But elsewhere Day rarely puts a foot
wrong. The voice grows in appeal with
listening and she gets beneath the surface of every lyric while never losing her own
innate warmth. This is a comforting, romantic
recording that benefits hugely from the presence of the ever-reliable Christopher Marlowe
as musical arranger.
- Mark Jennett
