Review Villes Ville

4 CDs featuring The Hoagy Carmichael Sessions (including previously unreleased out-takes) together with an abridged reading of Matt's biography 'The Singer's Singer - The Life and Music of Matt Monro'
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Michele Monro
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Review Villes Ville

Post by Michele Monro » Tue Feb 22, 2011 12:09 am

Sunday 20 February 2011


You never know what you have until you lose it, as the saying goes.



Matt Monro, the singer’s singer, was a part of the landscape of light entertainment television in the 1970s, his recordings a staple of BBC Radio 2. I never gave his work much thought – an entertainer for my parents’ generation, serenading the class of manual or white collar workers, who left school at fifteen to settle early into the job market, into mortgages and marriages, bringing up a couple of kids in modest semis; who flocked to Blackpool – Spain if their premium bonds had come up -once a year for their summer hols.


Well, yes and no.


Hearing his work now, twenty six years after his death on 7 February, 1985, the listener is struck by the fastidious English diction – none of that dreadful nasal, mid-Atlantic twang British pop singers seem compelled to adopt these days – the immaculate phrasing, the muscularity and musicality of that voice.


A bus driver amongst the many early trades he took, had Matt Monro’s career been happening now, it would surely have been power assisted by the cynical marketing machine of the moguls who run television talent shows. He could have made a killing: an appearance in the final, a cunningly placed Christmas single, and the one-hit wonder of modern pop could have retired a very rich man to obscurity, though not as rich as the mogul whose hand is on the tiller of the television behemoth.


But, then, he would not have been Matt Monro. The world he bestrode is long gone and with it, it sometimes seems, concepts like depth of commitment and integrity. Long after his initial great popular and chart success had faded, Monro continued to slog away with a relentless and gruelling series of one night stands in northern clubs or summer seasons at the end of the pier, his recordings divided between concept albums and commercial jingles. He did it, because it was what he did. It wasn’t about him; it was about the music.


Whilst his early work, in particular, was inflected with jazz or rather swing, Monro really belongs to a much older tradition: that of the troubadour. Little wonder he was so popular with Latin American peoples from whose bosom every one of the singer's sentiments received an echo. In his own country throughout the late sixties and seventies he was, in many ways, a prophet without honour. This was due to a combination of factors – indifferent even negligent management; changing tastes in music (production of the singer’s early albums by George Martin was shared with that of The Beatles). Most of all, perhaps, our sceptred isle lacks the scope and ambition for the music of Frank Sinatra and his ilk. Listening in the car home from work this last week to an abridged recording of Michele Monro’s biography read by the author, the singer’s daughter says the phrase “Caesar’s Palace, Luton” without a trace of irony. But that bathetic juxtaposition just about says it all.


Michele Monro’s biography of her father The Singer’s Singer: The Life and Music of Matt Monro was published last year to great acclaim. A new four CD set has been released, comprising the writer reading a condensed version of her work on three discs. The fourth disc is a re-issue of, for my money, Matt Monro’s finest work, an album originally released on 15 November, 1962, Matt Monro Sings Hoagy Carmichael.


The album comprises twelve standards(augmented on the compact disc to seventeen tracks with rare alternate takes, acetates and one song not written by Carmichael but which was recorded at the same sessions as produced this album)arranged by Johnnie Spence. Like Riddle for Sinatra, Johnnie Spence lifted Matt Monro’s performance up where it belonged with his buoyant and sensitive charts.


Perhaps in tribute to Sinatra’s recent recording of the Carmichael classic where he sang only the verse, the first lines of Stardust are an instrumental only, the singer making his entrance with the line ‘And I am once again with you…’ which forms an excellent opening to the album.


Ella Fitzgerald’s Songbook projects tended to focus on the lyricist so Hoagy Carmichael himself was not included. His collaborations here, though, with the likes of Mitchell Parish and Johnny Mercer – from Skylark to Small Fry - comprise a sort of top of the pops of twenty years earlier. Spence alternates between sumptuous strings and more bouncy, up tempo charts reminiscent of the two most popular bands at the time on these shores – Basie’s and Stan Kenton’s.


I Get Along Without You Very Well is, perhaps, the stand out track, the singer offering a master class in exquisite phrasing and just plain good taste. His work here certainly does not suffer in comparison with Sinatra’s version on his seminal Wee Small Hours album. Sometimes I wonder whether Frank returned the compliment when he performed the standard at the Royal Festival Hall in 1970, as keenly aware as he was of Monro’s work (to the extent of offering the singer a contract with his own record label).


There are other treasures, too – How Little We Know, One Morning In May and a song new to me, a sort of swinging ‘whodunnit’ I Guess It Was You All The Time (a version of I Get Along Without You brewed, perhaps, on the sunnier side of the street).


Monro’s own personal and professional fidelity is reflected, too, in the sonic faithfulness with which this album has been remastered. That is down to engineers Richard Moore who has worked extensively with Michele Monro in restoring her father’s catalogue.


Of the re-mastering for this album, Richard said recently on a hi-fi forum:


“I had always wondered why the masters for this album contained as much tape hiss as they did.The standard practice back at Abbey Road in 1962 was to cut the master takes directly out of the session reels and this was no exception. The original sessions were recorded direct to Mono and Stereo simultaneously – the same mix feeding both machines. However on this occasion after the album was assembled, George Martin decided that he wasn’t happy with the overall sound. Some tracks required more compression and others required a different EQ. This was probably due to that fact the all the songs were recorded across 3 different sessions over a four month period.


"So the Mono session tapes were dumped and new Mono and Stereo tapes were prepared by George and engineer Stuart Eltham. Hence the hiss!


"During my research into Matt’s recording sessions for the special edition of Michele’s book, I discovered a tape marked “DO NOT USE FOR COPYRIGHT REASONS” which dated back to the Hoagy Sessions. When putting this album together, I pulled all of the Stereo tapes related to the sessions from the archives. Lo and behold this mysterious tape was actually the original compilation reel with the recordings cut directly from the session reels – George Martin had put the copyright instruction on the box to scare anybody from using it instead of the ‘Mastered’ version.


"I listened to both the album master and the ‘copyright’ reels side by side. I was immediately struck by how much compression had been added to the whole album master and how little to most of the ‘copyright’ reel.

"I decided that I would work from the newly found reel. The condition of the tape – considering it hadn’t been touched since 1962 – was fabulous apart from a couple of edits, which I’ll get to later.


"The new master is NOT an untouched copy of the original compilation reel simply because the same problems that Martin & Eltham still needed to be tackled. The tracks from 2 sessions matched quite well, but the songs from the third needed to be EQ matched and there was a marked difference in the compression used on the ballads (too little) and the swing tracks (as a rule ok). I held back on the compression as much as possible, but couldn’t avoid adding as the originals in places had speaker blowing jumps in volume – something I wouldn’t have expected from Stuart Eltham.


"The album was recorded whilst Matt was in summer season. He travelled to London on three Sundays to record the album, and only had a limited amount of time available on each occasion. This meant that each song was recorded quite quickly and so a few of the songs were edited from two or more takes. These edits were made directly to the session reels and compiled on the original compilation reel. A couple of these edits hadn’t survived very well and so a couple of small sections (less than a second) had to be copied from the album master to cover this problem."


In these days of over-loud, over-restored, compressed, and brickwalled sound, Richard’s work has presence and dynamics. It is the real deal, a fitting tribute to the class of Monro’s talent. Truly, it sounds as though Matt Monro is once again with you…

http://villesville.blogspot.com/

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Marian
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Re: Review Villes Ville

Post by Marian » Tue Feb 22, 2011 10:08 am

A very impressive review Michele. (Good to have Richard's words included too.)
I must say the introductory line from the Hoagy Carmichael sessions sends a shiver down my spine everytime I hear it, or even think of it..
"And I am once again with you".... Matt certainly is! :D

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Josh
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Location: Kent, England

Re: Review Villes Ville

Post by Josh » Tue Feb 22, 2011 3:53 pm

Marian wrote:I must say the introductory line from the Hoagy Carmichael sessions sends a shiver down my spine everytime I hear it, or even think of it..
"And I am once again with you".... Matt certainly is! :D

Great post there Marian and so true!

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Sandra
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Re: Review Villes Ville

Post by Sandra » Tue Feb 22, 2011 5:00 pm

Superb review Michele.And yes Marian as Josh says your words are so true :D

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