Amy London - When I Look in Your Eyes

[GA Russell]

Broadway veteran Amy London has a new album out called When I Look in Your Eyes. She was an original cast member of City of Angels.

The album may be of great interest to those of you who are trained musicians, but to me it is fifty minutes of dissonance. One dissonant song would have been appealing, but the whole album like that is too much for me.

Here's the deal. Every song has many key changes. On every song at least one instrument either anticipates the key change or ignores it and sticks with the old key. So for much of the album the instruments are playing different keys at the same time.

London has an excellent alto voice, but she sings like the Broadway performer she is rather than someone who paid her dues in small intimate nightclubs.

Most of the songs are standards, but she has taken two Elmo Hope songs and written lyrics to them.

The pianist is John Hicks. This was recorded in August of 2005, so it was one of his last recordings.

You can hear the album and see what I mean here:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/amylondon

I'd be interested to see if any of you musicians take the time to listen to this and give us your thoughts on what the musicians are doing here.

edit for typo

Edited October 27, 2007 by GA Russell

[JSngry]

Dude, I listened to all available clips and don't hear any of the harmonic machinations you mention.

Maybe my Internt's busted or something and it's removing all dissonance?

Can you be more specific as to what you're hearing and where it occurs?

[mikeweil]

Dude, I listened to all available clips and don't hear any of the harmonic machinations you mention.

... and I can't hear any specific Laura Nyro influence in her singing.

Pretty much a mainstream affair, it seems to me.

[GARussell]

Guys, I didn't listen to what CDBaby offers. I thought you could listen to the whole album online. I guess not.

The dissonance bothered me more and more as the album progressed. I guess I just got weary of it. The first couple of songs didn't bother me, but by the end the last few songs bothered me a lot.

Mike, I have heard very little Laura Nyro over the years, so I can't say why someone felt that Amy London would appeal to Nyro fans. It would not have occurred to me to compare the two.

Jim, I've never studied musical theory, so I can't explain what they are doing in a more intelligent manner than what I said in post #1. But I think I know when instruments are being played in different keys, and that's what I think they are doing throughout the album. Even the bass does this, but it's usually a horn.

As I suggest, I suspect that trained musicians may find what they are doing to be intellectually interesting. It's unique for a jazz album in my experience.

But if you just want to relax in front of a Broadway singer doing standards, this is way too busy for me for that.