Nancy LaMott-"Autumn Leaves/When October Goes"

Nancy Lamott (1951-1995) was a New York based cabaret singer. You don't see much crossover between the jazz world and cabaret, with the exception of Maureen McGovern, a cabaret singer with a powerhouse voice and a swinging style. (I heartily recommend McGovern's "Out of This World-McGovern Sings [Harold] Arlen). LaMott was another exception-a sweet-voiced singer with a gift for emotionally charged yet restrained readings of standards, as well as a talent for making even light material sound like, yes, standards. Many jazz players were featured soloists on LaMott's albums, most especially trumpeter Glenn Drewes. This track features ex-Maynard Ferguson soloist Mike Migliore's wife Deborah with lovely cello work.

Here she tackles "Autumn Leaves", originally a French song ("Dead Leaves"), given English lyrics by Johnny Mercer, and "When October Goes, by Barry Manilow (of all people) and Mercer.  Beautiful as always-emotion sans overkill. This is originally from LaMott's all Mercer album, "Come Rain or Come Shine-The Songs of Johnny Mercer".

LaMott's story was a tragic one. She had done little recording till the 90's, when she was suddenly catapulted into the limelight with a series of successful albums, appearances on various TV shows, and a concert at the Clinton White House. But her health, always precarious, failed her, and she died of cancer just hours after her deathbed marriage to actor Peter Zapp. From the wikipedia article on Nancy: "According to conductor and composer David Friedman, who wrote many of the songs which she performed, LaMott's life featured two threads: her illness and her talent, and the 'two things peaked at exactly the same time'".


Nancy's imdb listing.