Your Requests

Presentación del Álbum

For her third album (on the German ACT MUSIC label), after Laila Biali in 2018 and Out of Dust in 2020, the Vancouver-born singer asked her audience which themes they would like to see her perform, and the results came in: Your Requests is a collection of ten immortal standards drawn mainly from the Great American Songbook, with a small detour to Carlos Jobim's bossa nova (Corcovado) for a touch of exoticism. Under the artistic direction of her producer husband, Ben Wittwan, and surrounded by a small formation of big names in Canadian jazz (saxophonist Kelly Jefferson, who plays most of the solos throughout; fusion drummer Larnell Lewis, spotted within the Snarky Puppy collective and ensuring here highly-structured grooves of the whole ensemble with power and precision), Laila Biali gives her all to these tinkered themes marked by the genius of the greatest jazz musicians of the 20th century. She uses a mixture of professionalism and humility which, in the end, have allowed her to gain a loyal following. Joined on the tracks by a few renowned vocalists (Emilie-Claire Barlow on My Favorite Things; Caity Gyorgy on Pennies from Heaven; the great Kurt Elling on My Funny Valentine) but also by harmonica player Grégoire Maret (Corcovado) and clarinettist Anat Cohen (But Not for Me), Laila Biali shows her prowess alternately on the piano and the Fender Rhodes. Her warm and sensual voice exudes in the setting of effective and consensual arrangements, offering an alternative vision of this great repertoire. While it is anything but revolutionary, it is perfectly done. © Stéphane Ollivier/Qobuz