New Madeleine Peyroux Album Featuring Vince Mendoza String Arrangements Getting Rave Reviews
The noted French-American jazz singer has just released her latest album "The Blue Room" which features string arrangements by Vince Mendoza. The album is garnering rave reviews from critics and fans. Following is an excerpt from Slant Magazine:
"Vince Mendoza's string arrangements represent the album's defining element. At his best, Mendoza lends a mournful, almost hallucinogenic sheen to traditional country-jazz shuffles (think Henry Mancini via George Martin), evoking without words the despairing philosophy of the album. (Ray Charles was no fool: He knew country was about pain, perhaps even more than the blues.) Whereas cut-rate Nelson Riddle imitations too often cheapened a good Charles album, perhaps because it was such an obvious a play to the white market, Mendoza's strings offer a bittersweet bed for Peyroux's reliably well-phrased, discursive vocal style."
Read the complete Slate Magazine rreview