Laurel Masse
These songs are served by a woman who knows her way around a lyric line. The album veers confidently from songs with a large nod to Lambert, Hendricks & Ross ("Jumpin at the Woodside," "Oleo," "I Got the World on a String") to the boisterous "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" to the sexually charged "Lazy Afternoon": "And I know a place that's quiet/ 'Cept for daisies running riot/And no one passing by it/ Come spend this lazy afternoon/ With me."
Listen, then try to forget the full, rounded notes, the idiosyncratic voice with a hint of breathiness, a voice at the edge of its soprano reach on "Again," a cut enriched by Rich Daniels's melting tenor sax. And there is swing and real freshness in Masse's "On the Street Where You Live."
Masse, 39. a Holland, Mich., native, demonstrates diction as flawless as her taste in music. Even songs sung at flat-out speed emerge clean and sharp.
Were there nothing else to recommend it. the album could rest on Masse's husky-voiced "Tout Bas." Even those whose French is limited—and who don't recognize the Kurt Weill tune known to English speakers as "Speak Low"—will get the romantic message so urgently delivered here. (Disques Beaupres; P.O. Box 268235, Chicago, III. 60626)
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