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Emily Masser Quintet – ‘Songs With My Father’

Vocalist Emily Masser’s second album continues her ascent with pin-sharp singing, scat, polished vocalese and some original material honouring her late mother and very-much-present father saxophonist Dean Masser. It’s a delight from beginning to end.

Still only 20 years old, and studying at London’s Guildhall School of Music, Emily Masser broke on the UK jazz scene with her debut album Introducing Emily Masser (REVIEW LINK BELOW) with the Clark Tracey Quintet in early 2024. Less than a year later she is back with a new band alongside her father, new material, new twists and for the first time her own song in Song For My Mother. If this all sounds a bit family-focused there’s no need to worry – it pays off in so many ways in this all-killer, no-filler outing.

Every number has a memorable twist. The classic Old Devil Moon, taken at a romping pace, has Emily and Dean playing a unison scat chorus together on vocals and tenor saxophone which puts the icing on the already-nutritious cake baked by London-based Hungarian Matyas Gayer and his sparkling piano, James Owston’s swinging bass and Latin-influenced cymbal and drum work of Steve Brown. These are of course all leading members of London’s jazz scene and it’s wonderful to hear them all pulling together here.

Dat Dere sees Masser turn around Oscar Brown’s original lyric about the perils of raising an infant from the parent’s perspective to the child’s. Even better, she adds a tremendous vocalese section now she’s grown up (or blown up or landed in a stew) and wants not a stuffed elephant but a new car. Tenor, piano and bass solos swing along in support. The Boy Next Door, introduced as a slow waltz by Judy Garland in Meet Me In St Louis, is taken as a 4/4 ballad which kicks up several gears for the solos (and nods to waltz time for a few bars near the end).

The album is called Songs With My Father (a clear nod to Horace Silver’s Song For My Father, beloved of jam sessioneers around the world). Emily’s late mother (she passed away just before Emily moved to London to study) is also a key presence. Song For My Mother is an Emily and Dean Masser original, a bossa nova sung in the first person as a moving tribute. In this context, I’ll Be Seeing You takes on a very personal and heart-rending meaning; it’s beautifully sung here, straight and direct – bringing moisture to the eye of even this grizzled listener in his cold garret.

I don’t want to reveal all the secrets of this stonking album, so I won’t mention the fast scat sections of Horace Silver’s Room 608…or the swinging stops on Peggy Lee’s Take A Little Time To Smile (where Dean Masser begins to see the light)…or the All-Blues-style treatment of Jobim’s Double Rainbow…or for that matter the spritely run at Thelonious Monk’s Hackensack where Emily shows that her lead horn scat improvising is absolutely a match for her much more experienced dad. I didn’t mention them – you’ll have to listen to the album.

I remember Rick Wakeman talking about the conclusion of his studies at the Royal College of Music in 1969, also aged 20. Already an in-demand session musician, he was shown the door by his professor who told him “You don’t always have to finish the course to finish the course” and bade him farewell. Whichever way Emily finished her course, this story is just beginning. There’s plenty of time, and for now there’s this superb set to enjoy.

Songs With My Father was released on 31 January 2025, and launched with a gig at Southport Jazz Festival on 1 February. The band is touring around England through 2025 including London’s Pizza Express on Monday 3 March. (TOUR DATES BELOW)

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