When I was younger, I valued Thought. Reasons, evidence, problem-solving. In the last twenty years, I have tipped the scales and I am inhabited by Emotion much more. Thus, music that is endearing and perceptive hits me hard, and I want to immerse myself in it.
I am in love with “Great Big Heart,” written and sung by the estimable vocalist and violinist Heather Stewart, whose work I have just praised here — on Leigh Barker’s wonderful new CD, CROSS STREET.
What wonderful singing, passionate and controlled, with a touch of folk-rawness and a singularly refreshing phrasing. And the song itself: hummable, with lyrics that neatly walk the tightrope between snarky and sentimental.
Because I love this performance, here are Heather and friends performing SAY IT ISN’T SO:
and with the Blue Mockingbirds, DINAH — such splendid animated grace and precision!
Heather can also be heard with The Dirty Ragtimers, a group I’ve written about here.
I met Heather and Leigh in person just once, at Casa Mezcal on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, when they featured divine music amidst oblivious chatter. Maybe that was 2015. I hope that our paths cross someday in Paris.
And speaking of internationalism, I would not have known any of these people without the divine intervention of Bob Barnard and John Scurry, two heroes who have visited New York on occasion. Bob is no longer with us, but I have only to take a minute to hear his glowing sounds. John, happily, is, and I have only to turn my head to see his artwork: I am so fortunate in my friends.
Heather creates warm humane music that tells deep stories, and she demands the spotlight for the song, not for herself. A great big heart made audible and tangible.
Postscript: Heather is an integral part of a new CD with tenor saxophonist Nicolas Montier, “3 for Swing,” which won the Prix du Hot club de France 2025. I haven’t gotten a copy yet because of baroque restrictions on parcels to New York, but I look forward to it. As should you.
I couldn’t leave this post without offering this, a true love-bouquet with every flower in blossom:
The occasion is the issuing of Leigh Barker’s CD, CROSS STREET. Don’t let his serious face put you off. The music romps and gambols, as you already have heard.
You can hear more here, and even purchase the music should you be so inclined, as I am, but let me put a few details in place. Perhaps you can read while you listen.
Leigh’s brief introduction:
2025 already!
At the end of 2022, we finished a wildly successful tour of eastern and southern Australia. It was a real homecoming and the biggest treat in the world to share the stage again with Eamon, Matt, Sam, Don, John, Jason and of course Heather was there from Paris too, delighting everyone and coalescing the group like only she can.
We managed to organise two full days in the studio and made the most of some very special guests Alf Jackson, Grant Arthur, and Brennan Hamilton-Smith. The repertoire is a collection of music developed each night during the tour in ensembles ranging from three musicians to the mighty eight-piece ensemble.
All of the tracks were recorded live and in one single take with zero overdubs or editing, with Heather singing live in the same room. Since the very beginning it has always been the goal, mission, dream, concept, vision (whatever you want to call it) to try and cover the widest territory of Jazz that we love whilst avoiding any feeling of pastiche.
Leigh Barker Seine et Marne Sud, France March 2025
The songs are I WANT SOMEBODY TO LOVE / VIPER’S DREAM / BLACK AND TAN FANTASY / GREAT BIG HEART / ROOT HOG, OR DIE / COUNTING BASIE / TOMMY’S BEBOP / VARIATIONS ON A BENNY GOODMAN / DEEP NIGHT / BRAVE MAN BLUES / JASON’S SWANAGE SIESTA / SHIM-ME-SHA-WABBLE / POOR BUTTERFLY //
and the musicians:
TRACKS 1-3, 6, 12
BAND 1 / DAY 1 Leigh Barker – bass Heather Stewart – voice and violin Eamon McNelis – trumpet Matt Boden – piano John Scurry – guitar and banjo Sam Young – drums Jason Downes – clarinet and alto sax Grant Arthur – trombone
TRACKS 5, 10, 13*
BAND 2 / DAY 2 Alfred Jackson – drums Brennan Hamilton-Smith – clarinet and alto sax Donald Stewart – trombone *No Donald **Add Phil Noy – tenor saxophone (CD ONLY!)
TRACKS 4,7-9
QUARTET Alf drums, Leigh Heather and Matt TRIO Alf drums, Leigh and Matt
It is possible that for some insular jazz enthusiasts, these names are, shall we say, foreign. A pity indeed. If you’ll permit me, I would like to apply an aural topical antibiotic to that insularity. It will clear it right up.
If that isn’t the most compelling two minutes and thirty-seven seconds of jazz recorded in this century, I don’t know what might be.
A few lines from me. There are many bands at this moment attempting with varying degrees of success to visit the past — the hundred-plus years of recorded jazz and written songs — and to bring it back alive. I wish them all well, or, perhaps, most of them. Some might profitably go back to what musicians raised away from big cities used to call “the woodshed,” and not to gather kindling.
What distinguishes the music you hear here, and on related discs by Leigh, Heather, Jason, John, and others, is a wondrous mixture of humility and cheerful invention.
Humility, to me, means meeting BLACK AND TAN FANTASY or I WANT SOMEBODY TO LOVE on their own terms, both with reverence for the sounds and the idiom from which the sounds emerge, but also tempering that reverence with personal elasticities . . . that is, none of the musicians cherished on this and other discs would be happy to hear their recorded solos imitated as sacred text. (I know that many musicians live and die for this spiritual exercise, and I salute them, but I don’t think the original creators would regard an evening of imitation as more than acrobatics on the highest level.)
The innovators of the past wanted the generations that followed them to be just as brave, just as willful (if you will) in what Lester Young called “going for yourself.” I don’t think that my idea of “cheerful invention” needs explication: not only improvised solos and energized ensemble playing, but original compositions and arrangements that scrupulously avoid “any feeling of pastiche.”
The music, from first to last, is engaging, warm, funny, and surprising. Leigh knows how to gather splendid soloists and let them be themselves, and the more I hear Heather Stewart sing, the more I want to hear her sing more. And I had the same reaction to CROSS STREET: one hearing was not enough, so I dove in again, with even more delight.
CROSS STREET is a great accomplishment, full of thought and elation. Eminently worth hearing. Thank you, Leigh, and these deeply fluent, extravagantly talented artists.
JAZZ LIVES 