Wednesday, June 23 from 8 p.m. – 12 midnight
Steamers Jazz Club, 138 W. Commonwealth, Fullerton, CA, 714-871-8800, Reservations Recommended, Peggy Duquesnel – Piano / Vocals, Ernie Nunez – Bass, Kendall Kay – Drums, Mike Higgins – Guitar
CD Review: Summertime Lullaby
Jazz Inside – May 2010- by Bob Gish
Summertime, summertime. Take a drive. Do what you feel. Or so is the advice of one popular songster of years past.
Yes, good old summertime when the livin’ is easy – and so is this recording by Peggy Duquesnel and company. Her “Drivin’ Blues” moves you along a melodic highway complete with high gain soloing by one of the great contemporary guitarists, Grant Geissman.
Duquesnel’s vocals, be they bluesy or joyful (such as her playful time with “Mack the Knife”) are tailored to the many moods of the season. And one of those dominant moods is romance, evidenced here by a quartet of romantic standards, all of which receive their due diligence, including a rubato opening to one of the most emblematic of summertime tunes, “Fly Me to the Moon,” which, once launched, moves full throttle into a swinging voyage, accelerated, once again, by the octave licks of Geissman.
“The Days of Wine and Roses,” “My Romance,” “On Green Dolphin Street” and the title track, “Summertime Lullaby” (composed by Duquenel along with “Drivin’ Blues,” “In the Quiet Hours,” and “Promised Land”) demonstrate that lyricists know the ins and outs of composition and arrangement, melody and rhythm put to words – or is it vice versa? With Duquesnel one can’t be sure which came first or whether it really matters.
Some of her solo work, such as “Satin Doll” and “Take the ‘A’ Train” manifest themselves as heartfelt tributes to their respective composers, peer to peer, as it were. “Quiet Hours” is a sentimental pledge to enduring love, regardless of the mutability of the seasons. “Promised Land,” done in a soft bossa nova style, reasserts an eternal hope for true love, that time so enhanced by summer when true romance seems to find its own way.
It’s apparent that these original love songs were inspired, as the composer avows, by time spent with her husband. Be that as it may, the overall message, whatever the times the Mr. and Mrs. spent together in love, the impulse of summer, if not the actual season, is everlasting and, as such, most worthy of Duquesnel’s considerable talents.
Peggy’s other CDs are Show Me Your Way and “Where is Love?”
