Joe Williams Presents Nicole Yarling - Live at Manchester Craftsmen's Guild

Sponsored and released by Manchester Craftsmen's Guild of Pittsburgh, PA, this CD records a live concert by vocalist/violinist Nicole Yarling at the Guild's Hall. Introduced by Joe Williams, Yarling presents a mixed program of traditional popular material, two of her own originals, and straight-ahead standards by Miles Davis, Eddie Harris, and George Shearing. One gets a preview of how this session will progress with the first cut, "The Best Things in Life Are Free," which kicks off with a scatting sequence rather than with straight lyrics. It turns out that a significant portion of this album is Yarling scatting in one form or another. From straight, wordless vocalizing on most tracks to Leon Thomas-type yodeling on "Freedom Jazz Dance" to outright screeching on "Conception," all scatting bases are touched. After a while, one yearns to hear a few words. There's also a good deal of attention given to syllable stretching, to the point that it becomes artificial. Instead of creating the appropriate emotion, the results are heavy-handed renditions accompanied by a good deal of shouting. Yarling does not suffer from being over sophisticated in the manner in which she portrays lyrics. She has the ability to sing in a more relaxed manner, as evidenced on "Blame It on My Youth" and "That Old Black Magic." On the former, she is backed by some excellent guitar work from Henry Johnson, and Joe Williams comes on stage to join them for a couple of choruses. Although the album features a prominent photo of Yarling playing the violin, she takes out the fiddle only on two occasions; one of them is a "hot" backing of Joe Williams on his own "Who She Do." The session ends with a couple of very nice bonus cuts by him.

Most of Yarling's previous success as a performer has come when she was with pop-rock and country performer Jimmy Buffett before moving to jazz. Based on this album, she needs to work on developing a distinctive, consistent way of delivering and interpreting material usually associated with jazz singers. Certainly, she needs to reduce her reliance on scatting.