Pretty Blues

Album Review

If singer Antoinette Montague remained a semi-professional at the time of the release of her debut album Pretty Blues, that said more about the commerciality (or lack of same) of her chosen style of music than it did about her ability to perform it. Montague was willing to answer to the terms "jazz singer" or "blues singer," even though, at basis, she was for the most part a straightforward pop singer, albeit of a type of music that peaked in popularity about half-a-century earlier. She could only be called a blues singer in the sense that Joe Williams, whose signature song, "Everyday I Have the Blues," she covered at the outset, and who co-wrote "Pretty Blue," could be called a blues singer. And, of course, Williams was always really a jazz singer. But Montague could only be called a jazz singer in the context of the arrangements over which she was singing. Her quartet — Mulgrew Miller on piano, Bill Easley on tenor saxophone and flute, Peter Washington on bass, and Kenny Washington on drums — was a jazz outfit, and Miller's arrangements left plenty of room for him and Easley to solo between the vocal choruses. But Montague, while a confident and strong vocalist, was also a relatively unadorned one. She adopted a less-is-more approach, and she was very concerned with articulating and expressing the meaning of the lyrics. That put her more in a pop mode than a jazz one. It also worked against her somewhat when she took on standards, especially those associated with earlier performers. "At Last" might date back to the swing era, but Montague clearly knew it through Etta James' 1961 revival, and she wasn't interested in competing with that triumphant version, giving it a lighter treatment. Nor did she care to plumb the depths of "Why Try to Change Me Now?," as had Frank Sinatra, who introduced it. She was better able to make her own the more obscure fare, such as "Pure Imagination," the Anthony Newley/Leslie Bricusse composition from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and "Miss Celie's Blues (Sister)," the Quincy Jones composition (with lyrics by Lionel Richie and Rod Temperton) from the movie The Color Purple. (Both selections served subtly to underscore the fact that the earlier versions of these works were superior — at least musically — to more recent adaptations.) On such efforts, Montague's artlessness succeeded in remaking the songs in a new way. There might be no big market for a singer like Antoinette Montague (although, in a world in which Norah Jones can become a star, who knows?), but her debut album offered a demonstration that good traditional pop singers are still out working in clubs and even occasionally making records.