Among
the many things the
Montreal International Jazz Festival
does better than well is discover new talent. Which
is why we can expect to hear a lot more from Montreal singer Emma
Frank, who, for the festival's 2014 edition, did everything right
before an exceptionally appreciative audience at Le Savoy -- a
cozy venue that brings the audience into the “I wanna hold
your hand” range.
What
Emma Frank brings first and foremost to her highly original and
winning repertoire is formidable songwriting skills, an aspect
of music that is too often neglected or downplayed or overwhelmed
by the technical side of song production. Not unlike jazz singer
Cassandra Wilson, much of whose repertoire falls outside jazz,
Emma Frank’s creative muse draws from the fringes of pop
as well as the twangy side of western, but it is all made to pass
through the crucible of jazz -- 
from
the brushy percussion to the dreamy trumpet and keyboard intervals.
We soar on melodies that can be easily sung without instruments,
but always on the currents of jazz.
From
the heart and at the heart of Emma Frank’s very affecting
music is wanting to be somewhere else. Between the words and the
spaces in the melodies, hers is a music that wants to break free
from whatever is holding us back. The songs, in their cumulative
effects, speak to many who long for solace and respite from a
world that doesn’t make any sense, a world all gone wrong,
a world that now includes alternative music in its mix. By staying
close to the source of the conflict and making her songwriting
equal to it, Emma Frank’s very particular musical interval
(signature) comes to the fore. Her compositions are invariably
excuses to take off, but not fly off at the handle. They begin
in terra firma, and only very gradually, sensually, do
they evolve into sweeping, majestic, transcendental ascensions
where the getting there is at least as satisfying as the goal
beyond.
The very
meticulously crafted textures and modulations wouldn’t be
possible without a very competent and complicitous band which
provides the breathing room and oxygen for the voyage. Her debut
album, For Being Apart, features Phil Melanson on drums,
Isis Giraldo on piano and Hans Bernard on bass.
As is
often the case, by the time a CD is released, the artist, in live
performance, is already somewhere else. Some of Frank’s
best songwriting, such as in “Clouds” and “Woven
Together” and the radiant (and vastly superior) cover of
Becca Stevens’s “Weightless,” do not appear
in her first album. Also absent is the lush and ethereal trumpet
of Simon Miller and the richly textured, celestial keyboard-synth
accompaniment of Isis Giraldo. All of this and more will show
up in her second CD, which should be available before the end
of the year.
But it
is Emma Frank’s highly personalized voice that delivers
the goods. If certain voices originate in the stomach or diaphragm,
hers emerges from the top of her head, or from the back of a cave
or far away place; it could easily fit into an opera chorus. Combine
Madeleine Peyroux and Mimi Parker with goose down and a sprinkling
of fine sand and you’ve got the Emma Frank voice, which
is more of a conveyance than a strictly beautiful timbre, but
it is the perfect vehicle for a collection of music that you want
to hear again as soon as you’ve heard it once. Instead of
shying away from using her voice in the upper range where it is
a tad thin, she incorporates it into her songs where vulnerability
is at issue. Only 26, Emma Frank has already learned to stay within
herself such that her voice effortlessly corresponds to what her
inner visions require for their highly particularized form and
expression, just as her extensive training in music allows her
to landscape her soundscapes that can turn a simple walk in a
park into a journey through an exotic rain forest.
Emma
Frank and her team shouldn't be concerned that her CD isn't billboard
friendly. In its uplift, grace and superb coherence we discover
in her music that the genre and singer are one and the same. Since
her material doesn't lend itself to radio play, she wisely plans
to spend significant time (both in Montreal and abroad) performing
in small to medium sized venues in order to earn the recognition
she already justly deserves.
If
at the end of hard day's night the world seems too much with us
and we want to get beyond the fray, Emma Frank's For Being
Apart promises to fit like a velvet glove, and travel us
far on the wings of a dove.
Photos
© Hanna
Donato
