Jacintha Lush Life

This is Jacintha's third album for Groove Note, and her first with strings. Very popular in her native Singapore, she's beginning to get a worldwide reputation, and this release demonstrates why: Her voice is lovely, with clear diction and expressive, naturalistic phrasing. She draws the listener into a warm intimacy from the first track, "The Boulevard of Broken Dreams," a rarely covered and beautiful song with the perfect "rainy night in Paris" ambience supplied by Frank Marocco on accordion. Other highlights include a bluesy but refreshingly non-wailing "Black Coffee," with a fine, understated solo by Bill Cunliffe on piano; he's also good on the silky bossa "Manha de Carneval," where Anthony Wilson's melodic plucking contrasts nicely with the smoothness of the strings…

This is Jacintha's third album for Groove Note, and her first with strings. Very popular in her native Singapore, she's beginning to get a worldwide reputation, and this release demonstrates why: Her voice is lovely, with clear diction and expressive, naturalistic phrasing. She draws the listener into a warm intimacy from the first track, "The Boulevard of Broken Dreams," a rarely covered and beautiful song with the perfect "rainy night in Paris" ambience supplied by Frank Marocco on accordion. Other highlights include a bluesy but refreshingly non-wailing "Black Coffee," with a fine, understated solo by Bill Cunliffe on piano; he's also good on the silky bossa "Manha de Carneval," where Anthony Wilson's melodic plucking contrasts nicely with the smoothness of the strings.