Cleo Laine and John Williams
So austere and underproduced that at times it verges on the deadly dull, this album is the second collaboration between Laine, the British jazz singer, and Williams, the classical guitarist. Its highlight is Laine's thoughtful rendition of the Ewan MacColl tune, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. That's the only track that contains much passion, though. John Lennon's Imagine, with all its empty talk about people giving away their possessions and general naiveté, is pretty much of a hopeless proposition. Three songs Laine herself co-composed (with husband-saxophonist John Dankworth and drummer Kenny Clare) are eminently nondescript, and of the rest of the 12 tunes only Colors of My Life, from the musical Barnum, gives Laine much to do with that marvelously versatile voice. Williams, too, sounds at best uninspired. The sound overall is so flat and dim that Laine's mildly up-tempo burst of energy on Let the Music Take You strikes an all-too-noticeable contrast with the LP's general lassitude. (CBS)
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