Stella Bass: Look For The Silver Lining

It is an enviable trait to always look for the silver lining in troubled times. For Dublin vocalist Stella Bass, when gigs dried up during the Covid pandemic, the silver lining was the gift of time. She did not waste it, studying music production with Berklee College, Boston, and music composition & arranging with Studio Orchestrations, Belfast. The seeds planted, work duly followed, with writing, arranging and syncing music for TV, film and gaming. She also decided that it was time to record again, almost a decade after Too Darn Hot (Self Produced, 2014). For Bass, the title of her second album seemed obvious from the outset.

Bass has led her own quartet for years, playing a weekly residency at Dublin's Café en Seine. She has also sung with the long-running Dublin City Jazz Orchestra, so she can call on the cream of the city's jazz musicians. It is no less than her voice deserves. Just as pianist Phil Ware's arrangements were key to the success of Too Darn Hot, another lauded pianist, Johnny Taylor, leaves an indelible stamp on the standards-heavy Look for the Silver Lining, with arrangements which play to Bass' strengths.

Taylor is a refined pianist, one who values economy and space, qualities that also shape his arrangements. However, when the mood takes him he is also capable of lighting a fire, as he does on "Being Alive," and on the swinging "Old Devil Moon," while his silky touch chimes nicely with Bass' deft delivery on the ever-popular "Pure Imagination." Drummer Dominic Mullan and bassist Barry Donohue, both long-standing collaborators, provide equally sympathetic support.

Telling cameos from flugelhornist Ronan Dooney brighten "Blame It on My Youth" and the leader's own "All The Colours of My Love," while tenor saxophonist Michael Buckley brings his customary panache to the swinging "This Could be the Start of Something Big" and the bossa nova-tinged "Change Partners."

But Bass is the real star of the show, her pure-toned voice, lightly spiced by vibrato, bossing the swingers, and imbuing the ballads with the requisite emotional nuance. In essence an interpretive jazz singer, albeit one who also sings Kurt Weil, Marlene Dietrich, Amy Winehouse and Ella Fitzgerald, Bass contributes two original compositions. The swaying "All the Colours of My Heart" and the pretty ballad "Still," co-penned with Yann O'Brien and Neville Lloyd respectively, nestle comfortably among the standards. So comfortably, in fact, that for one not overly familiar with the standards presented here, it would be hard to pick out Bass' originals from those by Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin et al. She should not wait for the next pandemic before reaching for pen and blank paper.

Excellent production values give these strong performances the added luster they demand. Recommended for lovers of vocal jazz standards—sultry, swinging, playful and tender.