Crescendo Jazz Music - November 2004 - Louis Barfe

SARAH MOULE: IT’S A NICE THOUGHT Songs by Fran Landesman and Simon Wallace
Fran Landesman is one of the few surviving Beat poets from the original crop. In addition, she has written many acclaimed lyrics, perhaps the best-known being ‘Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most’. Long resident in London with her husband Jay, she now collaborates with composer/pianist Simon Wallace, and it is their joint efforts that appear on this CD, sung by Sussex-born Sarah Moule (no relation to Ken, I gather).

The title track is a corker, a samba with lyrics counselling against beginning an affair ("It’s a nice thought/But it’s never gonna happen"), enlivened by Mullen’s warm-toned guitar. However, Shaw and Moule’s duet on ‘This Tune In My Head’ and the illuminating lesson on the differences between the sexes on ‘Some Boys run it close. Technophonbes might be put off by the presence of a song called ‘When Your Computer Crashes’, but it turns out to be a neat update of ‘Friendship’, an offer of support through life’s little disasters. Throughout, Wallace’s tunes provide a perfect setting for Landesman’s lyrics.

Among the many guest appearances are welcome cameos from former Loose Tubers Iain Ballany and Tim Whitehead. Ballamy contributes to two tracks, a floating tenor solo on ‘Jazz Aliens’ ("Living like refugees/They touch our tender parts/With haunting melodies"), and on the closer, a lovingly-drawn portrait of Soho barflies - a species known only too well to the Landesmans. Meanwhile, Whitehead’s interjections on three tracks are nicely spiky and oblique.

When the songs hit the spot, which they often do, they do so with great accuracy. Indeed it would be a nice thought to imagine the best of these pieces becoming standards in the future.

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