Une Fois dans Une Vie – Sophie J. Posey (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Sophie J. Posey is a cross-genre, cross-culture artist, making music that crosses between sounds and styles, evokes many different eras and even shifts between languages. But here, she returns to her musical heartland, a cool and confident slice of modern, piano-driven jazz in French, her adopted homeland.

As is always the way when there is a language barrier (sadly, as a Brit, my own language skills are shockingly poor), the voice becomes more of an instrumental force within the music rather than a direct method of communication. So it is more to the tones and textures it creates, the feelings it evokes, and the mood it sets that is the factor here. Although, she did helpfully include an English translation for lazy linguists such as myself.

Right from the start, Posey is a commanding presence, her piano chords striking, wandering between rhythmic lines and subtle fills and passing notes, yet spacious enough not to dominate her voice, which matches her keyboard in terms of presence and poise brilliantly. And something is compelling about her delivery: you believe that she is talking to you, and for you only, even though, like me, you don’t always know what she is telling you, it is transfixing, nonetheless.

Put the two together, let them intertwine and work around each other, one often finishing the other’s sonic sentences, and you have something rather special.

A piece of contemporary jazz, or at least jazz-infused music, which is both the creation of the modern musical moment yet harking back, as much of her music does, to a golden age for such music, conjuring images of smoky basement cafes or uptown piano bars, supper club clientele in their finery and secluded wine bars found off the beaten track.

Jazz for non-jazzers? A taste of the past being brought up to date for a new audience? Intimate music for the masses? An age-old torch being kept aflame in the modern era? Yes, all that. All that and so much more too.