This latest from Zoe, husband Rob Koral on guitars, Si Genaro harp, Pete Whittaker Hammond organ, Pat Davey bass (plus a couple of appearances by Rodney Teague) bass and Paul Robinson drums carries on where Good Times left off.
A Catholic mix, from a straight-up take on ‘Billie’s Blues’ (the only cover) and the slow blues threnody on workaday life ‘Just Another Day’, with its tremulous New Orleans funeral band horns, through the slinky, Latin-tinged ‘I’ll Be Yours Tonight’ with Si’s very Adlerish harp, to the Focus-style organ and guitar-rich opener ‘I Believe In You’. The highly original ‘Lucifer Is Blue’ combines a Chicago blues verse with an off-kilter 4/5 riff, a brooding almost proggy mid-break riff with increasingly showy drumming from Paul, and a Journey-esque coda over which Zoe indulges in non-verbal vocal aerobatics.
Zoe’s phrasing, diction and timbre (reminiscent of Ella Fitzgerald, Sara Vaughan and Marion Montgomery) and the confidence and musicianship to step back and allow her super-tight ensemble their own chances to shine, set her apart from the average blues shouter. Well worth a listen.
