COMPOSERS: Alison Burns & Martin Taylor
LABELS: P3 MUSIC
ALBUM TITLE: 1AM
PERFORMER: Alison Burns (vocals),
Martin Taylor (guitar)
CATALOGUE NO: P3MCD017
Guitarist Martin Taylor has a wealth of experience, including a decade of touring with Stéphane Grappelli. His playing is instinctive and warm, whether in duet with a fellow guitarist such as Philip Catherine, or as in this case daughter-in-law singer Alison Burns. Burns turned her back on her career as a lawyer to pursue her first love – jazz. To judge by this album she made the right decision.To her collection of standards, from the likes of Gershwin and Peggy Lee, she adds ‘True’, her touching tribute to her brother who died in the Falklands. Taylor accompanies with typically ingenious yet unobtrusive precision, illuminating Burns’s voice, as she applies nano-shades of emotion. That said, the pace of the ballads is on the slow side and the programme would benefit from an up-shift of gear. Neil McKim