Fire and Ice

If you're looking for proper grown-up jazz singing, rather than what the marketing boffins have latterly tended to pass off as jazz, then you need this, Honor Heffernan’s third solo jazz album. Here, without the benefit of studio trickery, Ireland’s leading exponent of the genre pours herart and soul into a carefully-selected bunch of songs that bring out the best in her deeply expressive vocal. You may have thought you could do without hearing yet another version of hackneyed songs like ‘The Shadow Of Your Smile’ or ‘Nature Boy’ or ‘Good Morning Heartache’. If so, think again, for Heffernan doesn’t just sing them, she has lived in them and even moves the furniture around.
Her interpretation of Jobim’s ‘How Insensitive’ is full of casual subtlety. She’s every bit as comfortable on Joni Mitchell’s ‘Blue’, from which she distills the essence with panache, as on Duke Ellington’s wistful ‘All Too Soon’. The production is impressively honest, allowing Heffernan’s artistry room to breathe above the tasteful piano trio backing. The sparkling brilliance of pianist Barry Green is a constantly reassuring presence on most tracks, especially ‘How Insensitive’, and he gets generous support from Jez Brown on acoustic bass and Stephen Keogh on drums.