Album Review: Blue Fantasia, Edel Meade

An award-winning jazz singer, who combines teaching with live performances and recording, Tipperary native Edel Meade has been active for the past decade in a variety of musical guises.

On her long-awaited debut, Meade blends originals with her own songs to impressive effect. A lushly-produced affair, it’s both fresh-sounding and comfortingly familiar. Irving Berlin’s ubiquitous dancefloor standard ‘Cheek to Cheek’, for example, is given an upbeat treatment with busy, bossa-nova rhythms.

Of Meade’s own compositions, ‘Love Lost’ stands out; a classic late-night torch song that could grace an Ella or Dinah album. Meanwhile, ‘I Tried To Take His Life’ – another original – recalls the atmosphere and feel of Dusty Springfield’s Burt Bacharach cover, ‘The Look Of Love’. Smooth, sultry and sexy, Meade’s voice oozes sensuality, while the piano and trumpet add sophistication.

Elsewhere, the title track is the most avant-garde and experimental tune on offer, while the singer neatly transforms Michael Jackson’s ‘Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough’ into a languid ballad. It just goes to show that inspiration has many sources.
6/10
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