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![This honey-voiced chanteuse sings the kind of songs that make us love jazz again. By <a href="http://sharpformen.com/author/barry-barnett/">Barry Barnett</a><div id='nr_fo_top_of_post'></div><p><strong>If you’ve an ear for delicate, whimsical, jazz-pop beats then <a href="http://www.lizzyparks.com/" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.lizzyparks.com']);">Lizzy Parks </a>is a name you need to know. </strong>Her debut album was a collection of competent but anodyne jazz ballads and belters. On the follow up, <em>This & That</em>, Lizzy has deconstructed some of those songs and re-presented them, alongside a handful of new tracks, as stripped down, minimalist musings of the most intimate kind.</p>
<p>Lizzy has the kind of warm, smoky voice that can excite the hairs on the back of even the most jaded of necks. On Wayne Shorter’s <em>Deluge</em> it’s allowed to dance naked with nothing but an occasional breathy sax break and slinky bongo beat for protection, which seems slightly odd for a song about an impending apocalypse, but that, as they say, is jazz.</p>
<p>“A Taste Of Honey” is such a staple of lounge singers and karaoke bars you have to admire the chutzpah of any ‘serious’ singer that dares to take it on. Parks approaches it as if it were some kind of pre-Raphaelite murder ballad, with all the melodramatic intensity that implies. She filters the tale of love gone wrong through a voice as cool and distant as Suzanne Vega at her most enigmatic. Don’t be fooled by the soaring strings and sweet guitar, though – this is a whole other kind of uneasy listening.</p>
<p>While both of those songs are covers, her original compositions are just as strong. Both “Time” and “Eyes Of A Child” have the kind of folk, jazz vibe that exists somewhere between early Van Morrison and late Chet Baker. “Raise The Roof”has the sad dignity of a classic Beatles or Jimmy Webb tune. It’s the kind of song Kate Bush would be writing if she hadn’t got all obsessed about washing machines. It’s also the kind of song you hope Barbra Streisand never gets to hear because she could (and would) murder it in so many different ways, never able to realize what Parks knows innately; that less is the new more. The album closer, “Leaving Home” is a simple tale simply told. Accompanied by an understated jazz guitar, Lizzy takes us into her confidence as she documents the end of an affair. The sadness is palpable, but she leaves us a glimmer of hope in the promise, “I’ll be back with stories one day.”</p>
<p>Looking as lovely as her voice sounds, you won’t think it too much of a hardship when we ask you to keep an eye out for Lizzy Parks. If you don’t catch her this time, she’ll be back with stories one day and you wouldn’t want to miss that.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tru-thoughts.co.uk" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.tru-thoughts.co.uk']);"></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.tru-thoughts.co.uk" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.tru-thoughts.co.uk']);"><i>This & That </i>(Tru Thoughts TRUCD 188)</a></p>
<div id='nr_fo_bot_of_post'></div> <span id="pty_trigger"></span> New Music: Lizzy Parks](http://sharpformen.com/wp-content/gallery/new-music-lizzy-parks-gallery/new-music-lizzy-parks-gallery00479-02_2.jpg)