Album Review:  If Linda Purl's THIS COULD BE THE START Is The Start, We Can't Wait To See The Finished Product

Heigh Ho, dear lovely rainbow tribe, welcome back to Bobby’s CD sandbox where we offer our broken-down breakdowns of new music releases. So, strap in and get ready, as Bobby goes on the record ABOUT the record.

This week’s latest album entry in the BobbyFiles comes from the gorgeous, the glamorous, the glorious Linda Purl, she of film and television fame, appearances on the stages of The Broadway, Off-The Broadway, and some very impressive tours like a recurring gig in the one-woman play The Year Of Magical Thinking.  When this pearl of a girl isn’t busy plying her craft as one of America’s most oft-employed and admired actresses, Linda is lovely in the lounges of the big cities of the world, the cities where the esoteric and sophisticated go to hear the best of the nightclub set.  That would be Miss Linda, my pets: the best of the set.

Linda Purl has been raising her voice in song all of her life, but Linda turned her attention to the recording studio and the cabaret rooms back in the Nineteen Nineties, putting out CDs and playing out (live) with the songs on those CDs, and with her voice like warm honey and her affable attitude toward art, she found herself on a storytelling path that didn’t just equal her walk of fame in front of the camera - sometimes it passed it by, as Linda Purl become one of the industry’s most in-demand performers, singing in big Hollywood benefits, appearing at The Cabaret Convention, and taking a chance on the International stages, singing for her supper.  But things have changed a bit for Linda, lately, and while she was, once, crooning the blues, now she is tapping her shoes, for Linda Purl got bit, me darlin’s, by the jazz bug, and, ever since, she has been spreading her artistic wings with great growth in each new show and on each new album.  THIS COULD BE THE START is the latest venture in Purl’s jazz adventure, and it isn’t just hers, it is also Tedd Firth’s.

It is an exciting thing to see an artist grow, evolve, change, and the musical marriage between the two friends and colleagues that are Linda and Tedd has been a wonderful witness for the last few years, the last several shows, and the last three albums (START is their fourth).  During some of her live shows in New York, Purl has mentioned the moment when Tedd Met Linda and how the artistic sparks flew between them, leading the lady down the jazz rabbit hole and into a whole new type of dialogue.  Well, if she was just learning when they started out, now Linda is the teacher.  The new album is a bit of a misnomer because it is called THIS COULD BE THE START… but one listen will tell any and everyone that Linda Purl, the jazz singer, has arrived.  In twelve tracks, all of them spectacularly arranged by Mr. Firth, Linda Purl’s skill is showing abundantly in her ability to meld her voice into jazz stylings that honor the compositions we already know, while giving them just a little bit more.  From opener THIS COULD BE THE START OF SOMETHING BIG (sublime perfection) to final cut WRAP YOUR TROUBLES IN DREAMS (Have heavenly mercy!) she gives her songlist a freshness that justifies yet another recording.  There’s no reason for anyone to sing that old chestnut I’M IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE is there?  Unless one has a story to tell with it - and, clearly, Linda Purl has a story to tell because her acting performance, within Furth’s fab arrangement,  presents with the urgency of a new relationship that demands being talked about, while the vocal performance showcases Purl’s range from sultry silk (on a surprise Frank Loesser Easter Egg) to clarion crystal on some higher-than-that final notes.  That’s reason enough to dust off an 88-year-old tune.

Purl and Firth presented a musical cabaret titled THIS COULD BE THE START in January of this year that was the basis for this album and it would have been so easy for them to take a recording of that show (and, dear ones, every show gets recorded or filmed these days), taken it into the studio, and tweaked all the knobs and dials to turn it into an album, but they opted to go into the studio and make this album the work of recording artists - a mixed and mastered work of art, and that is precisely what they have done, daring to take their time with tracks like LET’S GET LOST that are rich with instrumental solos, and reinventing the wheel with HOW HIGH THE MOON, a song more regularly placed in a playful up-tempo but that is, for Linda, all whisky and cigarettes and slow dancing under a single lightbulb standing in for the moon on a foggy night.  The duo (given a mighty assist by fellow musicians David Finck, Ray Marchica, and Nelson Rangell) have made a museum of paintings with each new track showing a stand-alone story, like a refreshingly straightforward and unpretentious NOT WHILE I’M AROUND that makes Little Bobby wonder if it is for paramour Patrick or son Lucius, both of whom are acknowledged in the liner notes… or maybe it’s for both.  And just when you think it can’t get any better comes some sensational swing in the penultimate number, a quintessential Firth/Purl presentation of Peggy Lee’s I LOVE BEING HERE WITH YOU that leaves you wishing the album were 24 tracks and not just 12.  Alas, my angels, it is only twelve … but what bliss and joy is to be found in each of those 12 tracks, which is why THIS COULD BE THE START gets Bobby’s full…

5 Out Of 5 Rainbows - Put this one in your collection/stream today.  

THIS COULD BE THE START is a new release on the Reaching Records label and will be celebrated on September 11th at 7 pm when Linda Purl and Tedd Firth and co., perform songs from the album at The Green Room 42 in New York City.  Information and reservations can be accessed HERE.

CREDITS & THINGS

Appearing with Linda Purl on THIS COULD BE THE START are Ray Marchica on Drums/Percussion, David Finck on Bass, Nelson Rangell on Reeds, with Maestro Tedd Firth at the Piano.

Keep up with all things LP on the Linda Purl Webbysite HERE.

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