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Zara McFarlane: Sweet Whispers: Celebrating Sarah Vaughan review – terrific tribute to a jazz legend


The British jazz singer pays homage to Vaughan with earthiness and spontaneity: an animated reinvention of these classics

The great African American double bass player Richard Davis used to note that it had been “the university of Sarah Vaughan” – his life on the road from 1957-63 with the jazz singer dubbed The Divine One – that taught him everything worth knowing about timing, improvisation and making every sound count. Accompanied by a crisply hip quartet led by former Kansas Smitty’s House Band reeds hotshot Giacomo Smith, and including young drums star Jas Kayser, she begins her fifth album with the early Vaughan hits Tenderly and Mean to Me, and continues with a song from the legend’s last studio recording – Obsession, from 1987’s Brazilian Romance. McFarlane doesn’t mimic her idol, but her resonant low tones and airily skittish upper range reflect Vaughan’s immense technical and emotional arc, while the band impart both a generic perspective on the past, and bring a springy contemporary animation to its reinvention.

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Photo of Zara McFarlane

Zara McFarlane

Photo of Sarah Vaughan

Sarah Vaughan