Sarah Marie

A forty-something singer who retired to raise a family in the Virginia-D.C. area, Marie is making a comeback, and it's a welcome egress. She has a strong individualistic, enjoyable voice which includes parts of Ella, Sarah, Dinah, Betty Carter, Nancy Wilson, and Teri Thornton – most closely Thornton. She's smooth but never slick, easy on the ears, with a good range and a deep, rich instrument that can easily belt when commanded. Pianist Mulgrew Miller, guitarist Marvin Sewell, and drummer Gerald Cleaver comprise the glue of these sessions, the ultimate musical accompanists and button pushers. Marie tackles some interesting re-arrangements, like the quick samba version of "What a Difference a Day Makes," atypical hard scattish bopping "God Bless the Child," and Sewell's Duane Allman-ish slide guitar during a bluesy swing take of "Tennessee Waltz" with Marie moaning, groaning, and yeah-ing on the bridge.

Jean-Marie Leclair was a master of fusing Italian and French idioms, conjoining the lyricism of the former with the dance momentum of the latter. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in his third book of violin sonatas. The sonatas in this album embody rich melodic beauty, drone and rustic elements – most vividly in the Tambourin of the C major sonata in which a hurdy-gurdy is employed – and demand tour de force virtuosity such as in the joyous Ciaccona of the G major sonata. Described by Gramophone as ‘technically and musically a marvel’ (Naxos 8.572866), Adrian Butterfield completes his acclaimed traversal of Leclair’s Violin Sonatas Books Nos. 1–3.

Jean-Marie Leclair’s violin sonatas embody a stylistic fusion known as les goûts réunis in which the lyricism and the virtuosity of the Italian school are integrated with the dance idioms of French Baroque music. In this volume, the music reaches new heights of technical complexity in its filigree ornamentation and continuous multiple stopping while still incorporating much wistful beauty. In the Sonata in D major, however, Leclair’s ambition expands yet further, as he combines innate lyricism and rustic drones in a prototype concerto form.