Liane Carroll - Seaside - The Jazz Breakfast

The summer might be over but you can extend it with this beautifully themed album from long-time Hastings resident, English seaside lover and general force of nature Liane Carroll. The title tune is by fellow singer/pianist Joe Stilgoe and has a jolly melody bedecked with all kinds of suitable lyrical material. Music for the pier with kiss-me-quick references.

Elsewhere there is a gorgeous reading of the song best known as Morecombe and Wise's theme, Bring Me Sunshine, and a wide variety of songs with related sandy (or pebbly in the case of Hastings) themes, from standards like I Cover The Waterfront, My Ship and Wild Is The Wind to the traditional For Those In Peril On The Sea, her tribute to the fishermen and women of Hastings and around the world.

In between Carroll squeezes in a bluesy Nobody's Fault But Mine and the torchy, aching Get Me Through December, a song most strongly linked with country-bluegrass singer Alison Krauss.

Carroll is assisted by pianist Mark Edwards, saxophonist Julian Siegel and flugelhorn player and the album's producer James McMillan.

Liane Carroll has to be the most flexible singer in the business, capable of such sensitive delicacy one minute and such gutsy raunchiness the next. This disc continues her purple patch.