After Hours at the Plush Room - Mychelle Colleary

"Fresh, Raw, and Romantic..." an unpretentious jazz offering, recorded impulsively, late one night at The Plush Room, a premier San Francisco venue, when the room was unexpectedly dark. "Live" spontaneous and swingin'... pure vocal prowess
After Hours at the Plush Room

© 2002 Mychelle Colleary (634479317927)
Any artist would deeply love to avoid the word 'pretentious' in any description of their work. With the release of her second album, Mychelle Colleary continues to avoid that epithet.



This album sets out to record the sound of the jazz and cabaret singer recorded 'live' at the Plush Room, San Francisco's jazz and cabaret venue. The lack of pretension is achieved by doing just that - the album was recorded without an audience, but without any re-takes or studio overdubs, featuring Colleary's vocals, Kelly Park's piano and Mike Olivola's bass. So, the musicians set up, played and sang, and this is the result.



It's an interesting concept, and it captures the sound of peerless musicians, and a singer who can perform this material with appropriate flair. If you heard this collection in a cabaret performance, you'd be impressed. The ability to re-listen to it repeatedly is a two-edged sword; both Colleary's talents and her occasional imperfections are underlined, an experience denied to 'on-the-night' listeners.



For example, a song like "Good Bait," with its complex phrasing and diction exposes occasional breathlessness in the vocal, the sort of shortcoming that can be ironed out with studio overdubs on a studio recording, and not noticed in a live setting, but this being a mixture of both, it does makes its presence felt with repeated playing.



That said, it's really nitpicking - this is a brave venture and it works completely on the slower numbers which make up the majority of the selections. The musicianship of the accompanists is faultless, with the perfect evocation of smoky late-night jazz on songs like "Angel Eyes" and "My Funny Valentine." Mychelle Colleary obviously relishes the strength of arrangement and melody in these standards, and the trio mesh seamlessly together.



If this album is designed to encourage fans to go and hear Mychelle Colleary in concert, or as a memento for those who have already done so, it works extremely well. If it's intended as an occasional late-night listen when mellow sounds are required, then it functions perfectly. It may not stand up along side the great jazz recordings, but the explanation of the recording method implies that it wasn't intended to, so no one needs feel misled or let down.



It's a pleasant album; it's well played and sung, and well produced. It may not set the jazz world alight, but neither does it consign itself to a remainder bin on first hearing. It's unpretentious, and in a world increasingly populated by assembly-line boy bands and midriff-flashing pop puppets, it's all the better for that. It's late night grown-up music. And we can all use a little of that.

Thanks to Andy Hughes