Search - Janis Siegel :: The Tender Trap

Manhattan Transfer's Janis Siegel swings both blues and ballads on this, her first album for Monarch. What the songs have in common is that they all dwell on the proposition of love, a universal theme that unites material by artists as disparate as Fred Astaire ("Change Partners") and Muddy Waters ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"). Siegel proves herself an adequate interpreter, despite sometimes falling into that tradition that mistakenly thinks Ethel Merman is as important as Billie Holiday. That is, sometimes the whole routine is a little stiff (especially Hank Crawford's alto solo on "The Tender Trap"). However, for the most part, Siegel has assembled a fairly good band here, featuring Crawford, Michael Brecker, Victor Lewis, and Fred Hersch (who plays nice understated piano on the album's opener, "That Old Black Magic," as well as "How Deep Is the Ocean" and a score of others). While Siegel is no Dinah Washington, she holds her own with most of the material, despite sometimes going off the deep end into swing revival fakery. But as she's been at it a long while, there's no need to doubt her authenticity. --Joe S. Harrington