Yet Another Neglected Masterpiece

Good Morning Kiss -- Carmen Lundy

Liner Notes

"I hear other, older, singers talk about there not being any young vocalists,” says Carmen Lundy. In the spring of 1983, anybody living in New York City was well aware of the fact that there was a startlingly talented young vocalist in our midst. Gary Giddins, one of the tougher of our jazz critics, wrote a piece in the Village Voice about Carmen Lundy that said it loud and clear: “She’s got it all.” Several weeks later. John S. Wilson, writing in the New York Times, put it this way: “In the five years since Carmen Lundy arrived in New York from Miami she has developed a vocal range, a presence and a sense of direction that have put her in the front rank of contemporary jazz singers.” Giddins ended his piece by writing, “Carmen Lundy is her own woman, and Jazz has been looking for her for a good long while.”

Well, Jazz, here - after an interminable wait - is Carmen Lundy’s debut recording, “Good Morning Kiss, and I won’t use the cliché “it’s been worth waiting for. ”Because, frankly, I’d be happy if there were five or six Carmen Lundy albums on my shelf by now. Still, it’s about time. I won’t go into all the details of why it has taken Carmen Lundy so damn long to record, because she really sums it up very well when she says, “I just wanted to be myself. I didn’t want to have to give up some part of what I did best and what comes naturally to me in order to sell records.” What we have here is not just a debut recording, but a jazz vocal album of a very high order. And an unusual jazz vocal album, because five of the eight tunes herein are originals. Rock stars are expected to write their own albums, jazz singers are expected to record songs by people like Jobim, Porter, and Parish. But a jazz singer with the utter temerity to place five of her own songs cheek-by-jowl with three standards by Jobim, Porter, and Parrish is a jazz singer looking for trouble. Expect no trouble - Carmen Lundy’s songs are durable, memorable compositions. From well-crafted ballads (“Good Morning Kiss,” “Quiet Times”) to sturdy shouters (“Time Is Love,” “Perfect Stranger”), to a combination of the two (“Show Me That You Love Me”), Carmen Lundy’s songwriting abilities should cause as many heads to turn as her elastic vocal ability.

“I think I’m a real romanticizer,” says Carmen Lundy about her songs. “A lot of my tunes are about love - losing it, finding it, having it. I like to choose lyrics where you can imagine as well as hear the obvious. And with romantic themes the imagination is always there.” I wish the rest of these liner notes could be like the ending of The Mystery of Edwin Drood - I’d love you, the reader, to be able to decide what you’d like to read next.

Would you like a Carmen Lundy bio? (She’s the sister of bassist Curtis Lundy, she attended the University of Miami and toured with its Jazz Band, she has been heard singing with the bands of Walter Bishop Jr. and Ray Barretto, she has performed in clubs and at jazz festivals from New York City to Port-of-Spain, Trinidad to Berlin, she has acted in the theatre.) Would you like to read more about the pinpoint rhythm work on the album? (“Harry Whitaker and I have been working together for about four years,” says Carmen, “and we have an excellent rapport. Something about my experience with him is special, magical. He’s very interesting, harmonically, to my ear, because I lean towards a very rich harmonic accompaniment - I like having ninths and sevenths and flat thirteenths and things against my notes. And his timing, rhythmically, for me is really inspiring. Victor Lewis seemed to be the natural drummer for me - he can float in and out of different rhythms and rhythmic concepts very, very easily. And my brother Curtis - well, there’s that brother/sister thing that no one else could give me. And his sound is so rich, his tone is so big.”)

Would you like to read about the fine horn section that comes in like a big band on much of this album - beautifully arranged by Bobby Watson? (“I have a real long relationship with Bobby Watson that goes back to the University of Miami. Some of the songs, like ‘Perfect Stranger,’ really ask for horns and I figured, who’s better than Bobby?” says Carmen. I’d like to point out that there was no doubling here - when this band sounds like a full 17-piece jazz orchestra, it’s a tribute to Bobby Watson’s rich arrangements.) Would you like me to kvell over the album? (This is a hell of an album! This is an excellent album! You’ll want this album in your collection!) Oh, yes, one other thing - Carmen Lundy produced this album, too. “She’s got it all,” wrote Giddins. He wasn’t kidding.

“I’m happy with the album,” says Carmen Lundy, “I think I’ll get more people to take me seriously. The right people, the ones that I’m interested in having know about me, will take me seriously as an artist, and not just as some other singer who’s only going to be here for a little while.” Carmen Lundy, I think, is here to stay: she’s too talented and too determined to fall by the wayside. She’s also part of a jazz tradition - the female vocal diva - a tradition that cries out for new blood. Here it is folks. Oh sure, you’ll hear a bit of Sarah, a taste of Betty, a scintilla of the other Carmen, a breath of Ella, but the only singer Carmen Lundy sounds like is Carmen Lundy. How refreshing.

- Lee Jeske (Original 1985 liner notes)