Carmen Ratti Band featuring Jill Dineen Come To Me
This has a bluesy semblance, but it’s Euro-flavored in arrangement style. It makes it curiously rich & interesting. Vocalist Jill Dineen has pipes & her vocals are decoratively assigned with both bluesy power, easy listening cocktail lounge tonality & middle-of-the-road finesse. Is that possible?
“No Delusion” & “Get In Line” have threads of Nina Simone, though the vocals are far more smoothed over. Smoothed over but not lacking grit & musical motivation – the instrumentation is buffed & waxed, but that’s not to say it’s so polished it doesn’t have a looseness to it – it does. “Get In Line” has a fast-moving stream of musical notes that move toward the rapids.
Still in a Euro-flavored state is “Come To Me” (extended version is good too) with its slight Charles Aznavour-Edith Piaf quality. It’s pensive, sparkles like flint & steel. Excellent ballad & arrangement. The lead guitar solo stings but is perfectly suited to the almost Paul Mauriat (“Love Is Blue”) melodic gentleness (dare I say). It’s almost as beautiful in quality as Timi Yuro’s “Interlude.”
This is the Northern California group’s 2nd LP. It blends rootsy music with blues on the 11-track Come To Me (Drops May 8/MoMojo Records/53:51), produced in San Jose, CA by Christoffer Lund “Kid” Andersen. They’re not from Europe, that’s strictly my personal impression of their elements after listening twice.
This isn’t a deep blues album either. It has its fancy, but it adds other spices that have rendered many of the songs rather “cool,” even impressionistic & engaging. Some (not all, but “Riley” & “Coming Down” for example) even slide a wet finger across the rim of the glass of Brian Auger & Julie Driscoll-Tippetts (“Nothing Will Be As It Was” “Ellis Island”). The jazzier parts & the organ interlay.
“Blessing In the Blues” is superb. Ms. Dineen is solid with a good flight in her range. The entire arrangement is radiant, fully fueled with solid rhythm & distinctively the Carmen Ratti Band. Jill doesn’t sing the blues like the female blues singers of yesterday, or even the more modern-day Janis Joplin types. Instead, she mines the vein of vocalists closer to MOR with range but may not have sung the blues, but could have (Vikki Carr, Julie Driscoll, Peggy Lee, Julie London & Timi Yuro).
“About You” has more of the Brian Auger organ motif & rocks. Impressive drums. “Uncle Joe” is jazzier like Dave Brubeck. “Pretty Good Man” sounds like blues, but it is too much show tune over the top. Good if on Broadway. But it’s not.
Overall, the set is satisfying & well played.
Highlights – “No Delusion,” “Get In Line,” “Come To Me,” “Riley,” “Blessing In the Blues,” “Coming Down,” “About You,” & “Uncle Joe.”
Musicians – Carmen (guitar/vocals), Tony Lufrano (organ/piano/bgv), Steve Hazelwood (bass), Randy Haynes (drums) with Lisa Leuschner Andersen (bgv).
Color image courtesy of the band’s Facebook gallery. CD @ Bandcamp & Amazon + https://www.carmenrattiband.com/