alisonboston.com

I finally got to hear Ann Malcolm on Saturday evening at the Columbus Jazz Club. I’ve seen her name on the program a few times here in Hungary but hadn’t had a chance to hear her. Born in the States, she’s lived in Switzerland for 20 plus years and is married to a Hungarian, so her ties to the Hungarian jazz community run deep. She’s worked a lot with the Szakcsi family but this gig was the first time she was accompanied by the Szakcsi Jr. trio with Szaksci Lakatos Béla on piano, Kőszegi Imre on drums, and Horváth Jósef on double bass as well as an excellent, unexpected guitar solo!

Ann Malcolm has a beautiful, rich, sensuous voice with a good range able to deliver both deep, husky notes as well as surprisingly bright, high ones. Trained in classical saxophone, she’s played with orchestras and jazz singing developed as a second career.

Putting aside her great renditions of well known standards - like Cole Porter’s My Heart Belongs to Daddy made so famous by Ella Fitzgerlad,it was the more esoteric pieces like Jimmy Rowles‘ The Peacocks retitled as A Timeless Place with lyrics by Norma Winstone, or Ann’s own poetry sung to the music of jazz greats like Kenny Baron, that blew me away!

Here’s a few lines from The Perfect Place written by Ann, sung to the music of Baron’s Sunshower:

“…once he said
‘trust me,
see the perfect place for butterflies’,
and in his arms I travelled far,
the heat was real and wonderful.”