…just please buy the disc, I want to listen to my copy without the distraction of thinking up new ways of saying it’s all blooming wonderful.

Helena Debono (Vocals and Composer); Charlie Bates (Composer, Arranger, Piano, Orchestral Conductor)

 Trumpets – Tom Walsh, James Davison, Luke Vice-Coles, Miguel Gorodi
Trombones – Tom Dunnett, Harry Maund, Daniel Higham, Yusuf Narcin
Reeds – Simon Marsh, Tom Smith, Graeme Blevins, Tom Barford, Chris Maddock, Claire Shaw; Guitar – Nick Fitch; Bass – Jack Tustin; Drums – Luke Tomlinson; Conductor – Reuben Fowler
Big Band Recorded at Livingston Studios, 1st and 2nd November 2023

Violins – John Mills (orchestra leader), Warren Zielinski, Magdalena Filipczak, Raja Halder, Beatrix Lovejoy, Marije Johnston, Cecily Ward, Jenny Sacha, Martyn Jackson, Ana Popescu-Deutsch, Eloisa-Fleur Thom, Anna Blackmur, Jan Regulski, Yuliya Ostapchuk, Ariel Lang, Calyssa Davidson
Violas – James Boyd, Clifton Harrison, Ann Beilby, Eoin Schmidt-Martin, Mary Pomeroy, Stephen Upshaw
Celli – Reinoud Ford, Victoria Harrild, Katherine Jenkinson, Ben Chappell
Double Bass – Lucy Shaw; French Horns -Martin Owen, Corinne Bailey, Paul Gardham
Flute – Eliza Marshall; Oboe – Philip Harmer; Clarinet – Julian Bliss; Bass Clarinet – David Fuest; Harp – Hugh Webb
Orchestra Recorded at Air Studios, 23rd November 2023
All arrangements by Charlie Bates

This an extraordinarily ambitious project, involving a total of 55 musicians. A big, big band spent two days in the highly regarded Livingston Studios in North London and a full orchestra added their musical magic at the legendary Air Studios. The tracks were then mixed at The Den Studios in rural Hertfordshire and mastered at another legendary shrine, Abbey Road. It’s the kind of treatment you’d expect for big musical names. But as the press promo material for the album describes them, Helen Debono and Charlie Bates are “young performers and rising stars”, not Sinatra, Streisand or Bono (no relation I assume). And whereas big stars would have wasted days of hugely expensive studio time on carefree joshing, writing and rehearsing, these talents got all twelve tracks in the can in a couple of days. Hats off to all.

The end result is the exact opposite of those self-important ‘concept’ albums with at most a couple of decent tracks. The songs here are a clever mix of fine old Great American Songbook familiars and fine new originals, all arranged and orchestrated by Charlie Bates.

The twelve-track CD showcases a very wide range of creative arranging and vocal styles. Big stage musical belter ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’ is followed by a lovely lazy lilting ‘My Ideal’ and then onto the rockish electric-bass based ‘Honey’ (co-written by Charlie Bates and Helena Debono) featuring an in-your face trombone solo by the knockout Daniel Higham.

Then there’s a big lush orchestra-heavy ballady ‘A Thousand Nights’ also co-written by Bates and Debono with equally knock-out muted trumpet solo from Tom Walsh. This gives way to a lovely loping arrangement of ‘I Wish You Love’ which is vaguely reminscent of Nelson Riddle, but with none of his repetitive trademark tricks. So far it’s my favourite track.

The arrangement on Lullaby of Birdland is truly novel with some inventive big band bird sounds. On some of these tracks Debono’s voice is temporarily toned down to something which just a little bit reminds of Stacey Kent. Then she is up and full Broadway again.

‘I Swear It’, yet another joint original, is catchily cheery with glorious piano from Bates. ‘The Nearness of You’ haunts and hovers just on the right side of schmaltz.

I could go on but you get the picture. Whether or not the basic aim of this gargantuan joint venture was to make a killer showreel calling card for both Debono and Bates, that’s what it surely is. We can do it all, they seem to be saying. If you don’t like one track, just skip to the next and hear something completely different but equally good but. So far I haven’t found any track I want to skip.

The musicians are mainly the new big names I keep seeing in just about every big band playing live in London. The whole darn lot of them are blinders. Graeme Blevins dazzles on sax, while drummer Luke Tomlinson boots it all along and Nick Fitch displays guitar styles ranging from near frenzy rock on ‘When’ ‘to the subtle accoustic rhythm chug I am sure I can just discern on the more laid-back tracks. Did I mention that Charlie Bates is a terrific pianist?

Nuff said. Now just please buy the disc. I want to listen to my copy without the distraction of thinking up new ways of saying it’s all blooming wonderful.

But, as a bit of background, both Charlie Bates and Helen Debono rose up through The National Youth Jazz Orchestra (who these days didn’t?) and Bates was Composer In Residence, winning both The Dankworth Award for Jazz Composition for his debut album ‘Silhouettes’ and later a prestigious Ivor Novello award. Helena Debono became the vocal coach at NYJO and more recently you may have heard her at the Pizza Express or Toulouse Lautrec rooms in London.

Says Bates:  ‘Our collaboration started over lockdown, sending each other voice notes, lyrics and melody ideas. The first song we wrote together was ‘A Thousand Nights’; on first play we knew it had to be recorded with an orchestra. Other, funkier songs such as ‘Honey’ and ‘Think I’ll Be Ok’ followed. ‘When’ and ‘I Swear It’ are vastly different genres, but shows how adaptable a Big Band and Orchestra can be.”

The album, Bates says, “represents us as individual artists, friends and a song-writing and musical partnership.”

It will now be fascinating to see how both artists progress onwards and upwards in their musical careers, professionally together and/or apart.