Nancy Lamott - Beautiful Baby

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Music reviews of Beautiful Baby

Music Review: Debut album announces a major new talent.
Rating: 5 Stars

LaMott is a ballad singer, with a voice that ranges from a sweet whisper to a gravelly vamp. With her great diction, every word is understandable, and her control allows her to interpret songs in unusual ways, often in a tempo much slower than normal, and always in intimate communication with the listener. Using the lyrics as the inspiration for the arrangements, she keeps her accompaniments simple, with her instrumentalists playing up her range. In "Child in Me Again," she sounds like the jazz flute which accompanies her; in "Every Breath I Take," she and the tenor sax join so well that it is difficult to separate which notes are whose.

Two of the most interesting songs are "It Might As Well Be Spring" and "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." In the former, which begins with a bluesy, minor-keyed dissonance, she sings in counterpoint in a major key, slowing the tempo, and ending with a lyrical, jazzy improvisation. In "Beautiful Baby," her bassist establishes a strong beat as she moves from a ballad to a finger-popping swing that ends with a wailing jazz interpretation. Five years after recording this, LaMott succumbed to cancer, ending the bright promise seen here and in the five increasingly popular albums which followed. Fortunately, her recording company and her estate have apparently settled their differences now (2004), and several new albums are expected soon. Mary Whipple

Description of Beautiful Baby

Broadway & Vocalists CDs

• Music > Styles
• Pop