Pete Churchill

Pete Churchill Trio featuring Bobby Wellins: The Bad And The Beautiful

by Chris May
December 16, 2004

Vocalists get a mixed press reaction in the jazz world. Most of us probably enjoy Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway's well-charged, hipster encoded genius, and Billie Holiday's survivor vibe pulls in almost as big a crowd. But from there on in there are two, seemingly irreconcilable tribes: one which loves vocalists, another which loathes and despises them.

The divide has probably been made wider by the current crop of over-produced jazz-lite twenty-somethings, marketed by the majors as saviours of the ...