Kandace Springs
The Women Who Raised Me
Blue Note
Listen Below
Kandace Springs’ sophomore album Indigo went down as a treat when it was released in September 2018. Here, just a year-and-a-half later, comes her third studio album in the form of a set of covers corralled together, inspired by female singers who have directly influenced her.
As much as jazz has blossomed under the constant reinvention of standards and reinterpretations of ideas, an album full of covers is always fraught with preconceptions. Does it signal a creative stagnation? An easy way to fulfill record company demands? However, equally it can offer a chance to demonstrate a novel, original approach to revitalize well-known songs.
Of course you’ve got to have some guts to cover the array of talent that has inspired this collection. The great and the good of female vocalists are paid homage to here—from Dusty Springfield to Roberta Flack and Lauryn Hill to the inestimable giants of jazz singing such as Ella Fitzgerald—the roster dazzles at every turn.
Thankfully along with the guts to tackle them, Springs has the vocal ability to do them justice—she possesses great warmth and a luscious tone that makes her takes on these classic songs a pleasure to listen to. There’s probably nothing here that burns with incendiary brilliance and there’s a simple jazz-tradition interpretation of songs that ensures arrangements remain as true to the genre as possible, which limits the impact somewhat. But nevertheless, in these troubling times, the album acts as soothing balm.
Broadly speaking, the album can be split into two types of songs. Firstly are those that form part of the “standards of jazz songbook”—these have been interpreted and reimagined many times over the years. And then there are the songs that spring from vocalists outside the world of jazz. Springs finds success in both of these categories.
As far as jazz standards go, Springs deals well with “The Nearness Of You” and album opener “Devil May Care,” with the latter swinging purposefully with the help of Christian McBride’s bass playing. There’s a neat twist to her cover of “I Put A Spell On You” (made popular by the incomparable Nina Simone) with the melding of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” and Astrud Gilberto’s “Gentle Rain” retains its sultry, seductive charms.
As far as the featured songs outside of the jazz realm go, she acquits herself equally well. Sade’s “Pearls” is deliciously put together for a jazz audience, with Springs sharing the same raspy warmth with the originator. Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” feels custom built for Springs, such is the ease with which she inhabits it. Worth special mention though, is Springs’ version of Dusty Springfield’s “What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?” She injects the already mournful melody with such decadent dismay that it is hard not to be deeply moved by it.
Of course there are a couple of occasions when things don’t quite translate. As beautifully as her version of Lauryn Hill’s “Ex-Factor” is sung, the musical accompaniment sucks the drama from what is a gaping wound of a song. The bass line comes across as almost jaunty, thus robbing the song of its intensity. Similarly, “Strange Fruit” (that brooding monster of a song made famous by Billie Holiday) is given a warm accompaniment that doesn’t offer up a contrast to heighten the gut-wrenching impact of the song, but rather an awkward, inappropriate embrace that renders the song blunted.
Last year Raphael Saadiq opined that the world was drunk and the people were mad, and the current global pandemic is doing nothing to dissuade us from that point of view. What better antidote to the increasing insanity of our world than a set of great songs sung brilliantly with panache and style. Pour a glass of your favored tipple, turn down the lighting and relax into Kandace Springs’ luxurious tones, safe in the knowledge that at least some of the world’s ills will melt from view.
Notable Tracks: “Gentle Rain” | “I Can’t Make You Love Me” | “Pearls” | “What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?”
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