Paulette Dozier – With You (CD)

 

Sound: B     Music: B-

 

 

Paulette Dozier is a Jazz singer whose phrasing is deeply in the traditional phrasing (scatting, unusual time signatures) of the genre.  That is not bad in itself, but it makes for some awkward moments on her new CD album With You (2005) when she tries to reinterpret some of the most important records ever made.  The playlist offers the following:

 

1)     Only You

2)     Groovin’ With Marvin

3)     Fever

4)     Nature Boy

5)     Ode To Billie & Freddie

6)     With You

7)     Just In Time

8)     Alfie

9)     I’m In Love

10)  Walk On By

 

 

She can definitely sing and has an  interesting voice, but the covers are sometimes hard to take.  Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing and How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You are the two songs mixed oddly on track 2.  The former was Marvin Gaye’s brilliant duet with Tammi Terrell that does not work here as a solo record, totally unlike Diana Ross’ reinterpretation of Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, less soulful as some may think it is.

 

Remaking any Motown classic is usually a bad idea, but then we get a new version of Peggy Lee’s hit Fever, which was recently one of Madonna’s odder hits.  This song has been covered just one too many times and this wild rearrangement does not make any difference.  Yes, the song is trying to be truer to some of the classic’s jazz roots, but it never comes together.

 

Then she tries the music of Burt Bacharach & Hal David.  Miss Dozier takes on no less than Alfie and Walk On By.  Cher and many others have also done Alfie and we have heard worse versions, but this one feels rushed and pat.  As for Walk On By, Isaac Hayes remake (reviewed elsewhere on this site on his SACD for Hot Buttered Soul) is still the definitive revision, but this version is too choppy for its own good.  As compared to the definitive Dionne Warwick, forget it!  She’s at the peak of her powers and her backup singers include great voices like sister Dee Dee Warwick and Whitney Houston’s mom Cissy Houston.  Bacharach and David usually produced and engineered those recordings as well.

 

In all, Miss Dozier is being very bold and ambitious.  Though this is all being performed with the utmost sincerity, it never gels or clicks.  Only non-fans of the originals might like them, though those who consider the earlier works “old songs” and ask the eternally stupid question “what else are you supposed to do with them now?” miss the point of art and legacy in general.  The PCM 2.0 16Bit/44.1khz Stereo is not a bad recording, though nothing remarkable either.  It is warm and full, though some clarity is not there.  This is one you will have to hear for yourself, if you are interested.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo