Deborah Silver – Glitter & Grits – CD Review
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Surface noise: N/A
Dynamic Range: 4
Stereo Imaging: 4+
Image depth/perspective: 4-
Overall frequency response: 4
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Track List:
- I Got Rhythm
- That Old Black Magic
- I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself A Letter
- After You’ve Gone
- Ballin’ The Jack
- Almost Like Being In Love
- Get Happy
- Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive
- Embraceable You
- Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home
- Don’t Get Around Much Anymore feat
- Fly Me To The Moon
- Deep In The Heart Of Texas feat
Main Instrumental Line Up:
- Deborah Silver – Vocals
- Josh Hoag – Bass
- Floyd Domino – Piano
- David Sanger – Drums
- Dennis Ludiker – Fiddle & Mandolin
- Eddie Rivers – Steel Guitar
Supporting Track Musicians:
- Ray Benson & Rick McRae – Electric Guitar
- Mickey Raphael – Harmonica
- John Mills – Saxophone
This album was recorded at The Orb, Austin TX; Bismeaux Studio, Austin, TX and Power Station Studios, Pompano Beach, FL. It was engineered by Steve Mazur with additional engineering by Paul Kronk and mastered by Michael Fuller at Fullersound Inc., Ft. Lauderdale, FL. The album was originally released on the NTL Records label on August 7th, 2020.
An exuberant vocalist, Deborah Silver is known for her soulful and polished renditions of classic jazz and pop melodies. Her 2014 CD release of Pure Silver attracted significant attention from the critics, before she topped the Traditional Jazz Albums chart with her 2016 release of The Gold Standards. This album earned the #1 Billboard magazine chart positions, in both the Traditional Jazz Album and the Heatseeker Album charts. It also made the #2 spot on the Billboard Jazz Album charts and the #10 spot on the Independent Album chart.
Deborah Silver is a seasoned jazz vocalist having performed at Feinstein’s 54 Below, the Lincoln Center For Jazz and The Colony’s Royal Room to name just a few venues. This is her third album release.
The recording provides a close and upfront performance by Deborah. Standing front-center of the mix there seemed to be few restrictions to the dynamics of her vocal range. Her voice was very natural, having excellent annunciation, with little undue emphasis to any part of the vocal range creating a rich, mellow and warm tone, her close miking rarely accentuating any sibilance. Deborah’s vocal presence throughout, and that of her duet partner, Ray Benson, on T5 was very good, with Ray making an “appearance” in my room.
Musicianship and vocals were very good providing a tight, enjoyable and entertaining performance. Stereo imaging was solid with just a touch of reverb being added to both Deborah’s voice and the instruments, that you occasionally hear tail out. There are many short instrumental breaks and solos but few long ones as it’s all about Deborah’s vocals. Solos of note would include: T3,T4,T13-fiddle, T3,T6,T10-piano, T9-sax, T10-piano/guitar, T11,T13-harmonica, T12-guitar. No significant kit or bass solos were noted.
The recording appeared to use panned stereo to place the performers into the stereo image so while the entire kit image appeared well set back behind Deborah the remaining instruments showed little depth of field mostly appearing in a line just behind her except when they were panned front-center during solos. The instrumental lineup changed positions between tracks but generally speaking we had; (L↔R)piano, (L→C)electric guitar, fiddle, sax, backing vocals, (C)vocals/sax/electric guitar/fiddle/harmonica/bass, (C→R)backing vocals, sax, mandolin/electric guitar, steel guitar.
All instruments sounded very natural but lacked a little in detail, sparkle and openness. The sax sounded mellow with a clean brassy edge, no key, wind or reed noise was noted. The harmonica had a bright and pleasant, raspy, reed sound. The electric guitar(s) were smooth and mellow with the slide/metal guitar sounding open and clean. The piano occupied the entire forward stereo image, being almost in front of Deborah’s vocals, sounding a little “honky tonk” on occasions with good attack and a clean, bright, edgy tone, while the fiddle sounded lively, clean and bright, showing no signs of being strident. I found the mandolin a little lost in the mix.
The kit created a strong central image from midway left to midway right being set well back. The toms provide a well damped hollow tone, while the kick drum was never apparent on any track! The snare had a short well damped ring and provided a few very impactful rim shots on T10/11. Brush work was very prevalent on virtually all tracks, it was detailed and clean as were the cymbals and hi-hat, while the wood blocks were pleasingly resonant.
The acoustic bass was always dead center, sounding tight and natural with no coloration, never getting lost in the mix and occasionally popping to its front. No significant finger work was heard.
Despite no overtly obvious compression, the overall instrumental dynamics never really excelled and the soundstage lacked a little in punch. There was no significant audible noise floor or hum present at anytime.
All tracks are well recorded and performed, providing accomplished vocal performances with all the tracks having several foot tapping instrumental short solos and breaks throughout. I am sure that many contemporary jazz fans, and in particular fans of Deborah Silver, will thoroughly enjoy this album.
Playback note: Reviewed using my Denon DBP A100 over Denon Link 3. Speakers; a stereo pair of Genelec 1038’s and four SVS subs.
Disclosure: This CD was provided by Kari-On Productions for my review. No financial compensation was provided.
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