Nora McCarthy: In the Early Morning Light
Recorded: New York, July 2007 and March 2008
Rating: 85/100 (learn more)
During a recent conversation with a friend, we got into the worth of poetry. He wondered why anybody would bother with a "clever" rendering of something when a more direct description would suffice. I tried to steer him to the fact that most poetry attempts to distill a particular idea to its essence (something lost on most high-schoolers, who are drowned early on in things like rhyme schemes and other poetic minutiae). A good poet can tell a story with a minimum of text. So when Nora McCarthy tells the story of lies that have been "swept under the carpet / all scramble like roaches in the early morning light," she extends the idea in a couple of directions at once – with a kind of vocalese, aided by skittery piano bits. The presentation says far more than a couple of paragraphs could, that's for sure.
Reviewer: Mark Saleski
Tags: 2000s jazz · jazz vocals
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