“Bookmark” is the début recording of young Leeds based singer Tessa Smith. The ten songs consist of three Smith originals, a clutch of standards and a couple of examples of “vocalese”. 

Born in Northumberland Smith studied at the prestigious Leeds College of Music, initially classical but subsequently switching to the jazz course. Her young accompanists on this album are also former LCM students Aidan Shepherd (piano), Emlyn Vaughan (electric bass) and Matt Walker (drums). At Leeds Smith also worked with producer Gavin McGrath and the album was recorded in the stunning setting of McGrath’s Red Kite Studios in rural Wales.

The album kicks off with Smith’s playful “I Don’t Like It” a song in which the singer gently makes fun of herself and her “spoilt little girl” persona. Smith throws a few passages of scat into the proceedings and Vaughan’s bass also features prominently.

“A Time For Love” is a languid, jazzy ballad but there are so many singers doing this kind of thing that it’s hard to get particularly excited about it. However pianist Shepherd, the album’s star instrumentalist, maintains the interest with an articulate solo and a strong overall contribution.
More successful is a beautiful pared down version of “I Remember Clifford” with Smith injecting real feeling into the moving words written by Jon Hendricks for Benny Golson’s beautiful melody.

“Tess’s Torch Song” finds the singer adding her own words to those of Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler. This tale of love and betrayal (Smith’s man goes off with her best friend) may well be autobiographical. The singer’s liner notes mention that the album was recorded immediately after a difficult period in her life. Musically the song is given a subtle blues treatment with the singer rising above her difficulties to revel in her newly enforced independence. 

Pianist Steve Kuhn’s “The Saga Of Harrison Crabfeathers” is also given the pared down treatment with Shepherd again providing sympathetic piano accompaniment. Despite the apparent whimsy of the title the song is genuinely moving, a tale of the premature death of a child.

Frank Loesser’s “Never Will I Marry” is another tune from the standards canon delivered here at a fast tempo with the singer treading surely above Vaughan’s propulsive bass undertow and Walker’s neatly energetic drumming. Pianist Shepherd weighs in with another flowing solo and trades breaks with drummer Walker. 
   
Smith’s ballad “Waves”  is a convincing original song delivered with feeling by the singer with sympathetic accompaniment from the trio. Smith sounds authentically desolate on another tale of lost love.

Bobby Hebb’s “Sunny”  changes the mood but there is still a trace of regret in Smith’s voice. It’s an original treatment of the song and Shepherd is again excellent with Vaughan also shining as a soloist. Nevertheless, for me, this is still a piece I’ve heard far too often.

The album’s most ambitious track is a nine minute vocalese version of Wayne Shorter’s “Mahjong”, originally from Shorter’s 1964 Blue Note album “Juju”. Like so many of Shorter’s pieces it’s a wonderful tune and Smith and her colleagues certainly do it justice with Shepherd and Vaughan again featuring strongly. Smith’s part sung/part spoken vocals accentuate the positivism of the words, sentiments which are carried on into the closing “Bookmark”, a Smith original with a simple, haiku like lyric and simple bass accompaniment.

Smith’s influences include Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone and Kurt Elling and she has won the endorsement of Anita Wardell, a great champion of emerging singers. Smith clearly has a talent for jazz phrasing and on the whole has chosen her material well with the Golson and Kuhn pieces particularly effective. Her musicians acquit themselves well too, particularly Shepherd but in an overcrowded field the album doesn’t quite do enough to make it stand out from the pack. Nonetheless it’s an accomplished début full of considerable promise.

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