Anyone who has had a passing flirtation with The Jazz Meet Live event this year will no doubt be aware of Jessica Lauren. A main stay of the house band over the last twelve months (and way before in its many previous guises), when Ms Lauren holds court over her trusty keyboard, we are assured that live proceedings will heed an effortlessly soulful, funky and often righteous edge right from the off. Of course, over the past 20 years she’s also been a creative and much in demand musician in her own right, releasing tracks at the dawn of Acid Jazz on Stuart Baker’s iconic Soul Jazz Records, and adding her musical skills to a plethora of other people’s projects in various styles and tempos, from house and broken beat, through to soul and even full on New Orleans big band funk. If all this has been forgotten, I think it’s safe to say that now is the time to reacquaint yourself with her studio work.
London record label Freestyle Records took it upon themselves to sign Jessica’s new acoustic project ‘Jessica Lauren Four’ and, in the interim, are set to unleash a three-track twelve-inch (yes, vinyl!) on March 19th 2012 featuring two brand new vocal cuts and an absolutely gorgeous instrumental. And what a precursor it is…
Legendary soul diva Jocelyn Brown provides vocals on two of tracks on the EP after agreeing to feature after a chance meeting with Jess at a recording session. Here she propels the opening ‘Happiness Train’ (present here in Jessica’s own ‘Miss Marple Edit’) into a raucous funk driven number, her unmistakable voice riding the rumbling rhythms of the keyboard and Andy Kremer’s bass. ‘I Believe’ on the other hand slows things right down as Ms Brown takes things to church with a bluesy, rootsy excursion into soulful gospel, Jess’ understated playing complementing the track’s mellow balance perfectly. The third track ‘White Mountain’ is probably the most instrumentally stunning of the three with a shimmering start giving way to slight percussion from David ‘Booie’ Gallagher and Paul Gunter and an almost hypnotic groove bringing the EP to a perfect close.
TRACKLIST
A1) Happiness Train (feat Jocelyn Brown) (Miss Marple Edit)
A2) I Believe (feat Jocelyn Brown)
B1) White Mountain
RELEASE DATE: March 19th 2012 on Freestyle Records (FSR096)
The full album ‘Jessica Lauren Four’ will be released by Freestyle Records on vinyl and CD April 16th 2012