Make a beeline for Zee

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Zee Avi — Bushfire Records & Monotone Present Zee Avi

RIGHT here in the Malaysian backyard of Bukit Damansara, Izyan Alirahman was a delectable sounding chanteuse in-the-making, developing a voice vibrating in easy resonance and with effortless rendering. She wasn’t a blue-eyed soul hipster somersaulting in vocal gymnastics and screaming in turbo-charging decibels but voicing pleasing refrains.

Better known by her stage name Zee Avi, the singer and songwriter always had the talent for singing and playing the guitar and ukulele.

Still, her delivery was considered offbeat by Malaysian standards. So she had to traverse to the other side of the world, the United States of America, to be heard, cut a recording deal and play to small but adoring crowds in the independent circuit.

Zee’s performances are sparkling, fun and scorching, having the quality of whimsical minimalism. She is accompanied by an assortment of instruments (drums, acoustic bass, pipe organ, accordion and harp, among others).

There’s the inevitable comparison to that American chanteuse Nora Jones but it’s heartening to note that a voice this authentic can be appreciated for its immaculate strength, unfortified by a 32-track mixing console or other unnatural device.

Zee’s vibrato is heard trembling in Poppy, a bluesy, melancholic number, and the folksy Honey Bee reminds you of a stripped down but serene Indigo Girls.

A favourite for Malaysians would be Kantoi, where she sings half in English and half in Malay, a Manglish ditty of being two-timed in Damansara.

Sympathetically backed by the various rhythm sections of lesser-known American percussionists, the beat and mood of the album is understated, especially in Let Me In, the music feeling its way to accommodate the reluctant loveliness of Zee’s compositions.

You might think this was the product of the American heartland, such is her strong employment of their musical book, but she is one of our own, just without the idiosyncrasies and cloyingness of locally produced works. Perhaps she will explore the Malaysian musical manuscript in her next effort, and make it an even more enjoyable jaunt.

Michael Buble — Michael Buble Meets Madison Square Garden (CD+DVD) Ever since Frank Sinatra crooned his way to the nightclub in the sky, he left behind a gaping hole in the sentimental and cool genre of the Brat Pack.

Enter Michael Buble, a distant cousin of the matinee idol. He may not have Sinatra’s piercing blue eyes, bigger-than-life presence and suavely adroit tenor but Buble is a far more hip singer, willing to infuse his numbers with modern, pop-inflected takes (Home and Everything) that elevate him from being a mere Sinatra clone to a genuine crooner of sentimentalism and nostalgia.

Buble had a quirky journey to fame. Born and raised in Canada, he was mistaken for an American and eventually became an Italian citizen. Go figure. But there is no doubt his pitch of nostalgia appeals to a cross-section of youngsters who dig his Sinatra-styled inflections.

This CD and DVD of his concert in Madison Square Garden encapsulates everything that Buble represents: the yearning songs sung in the style of a halcyon era where contemporary pop numbers are re-jigged into the Buble combination of loose tie, stage presence and adoring crowds. All crowd favourites are present and accounted for — I’m Your Man, Me And Mrs Jones, Call Me Irresponsible, I’ve Got The World On A String and Feeling Good. And, yes, his monster hits Home and Everything, reprised in full.

This is not the type of music associated with transformation or new vocabulary a la Beatles or Led Zeppelin, but a throwback where rock and roll is heavily sanitised and music is what your parents want you to hear. Rob Thomas — Cradlesong One of the few enviable qualities of the Western singer/songwriter in the rock-alternative genre is his liberty to compose songs with limited or derivative melodic command, pad them with rollicking rhythms and quirky lyrics and get away with it — nay, even get rewarded for it with commercial success.

Rob Thomas, the former vocalist with Matchbox 20 with the boy-man look, accomplishes this so-so feat with Cradlesong, a group of tunes made alive by producer and arranger Makk Serletic with rock-ish flavourings and tinny textures which can’t shield the melodies for what they are — beguiling but bland. But it’s a genre that has the quality of making people move to the beat, if beats are what you desire and induce you to listen uncritically.

There are some redeeming qualities — Cradlesong, the number that gives the album its cover name, has a halo-like presence with rock’s credo of one to three chords to get things jumping, while Getting Late has Thomas retreating to pleasing folk music.

Thomas sticks to the time-tested groove of strong rhythmic droning in most songs. He seems to be going through the paces here but with limited songwriting capabilities and propelled only by his rock star persona and that monster 1999 gig with Carlos Santana singing Smooth, keeps him relevant.

Maxwell — Black Summers’ Night Okay, somebody has to assume the Marvin Gaye mantle, even if Gaye is a lyrical seducer (remember Sexual Healing?). Maxwell Rivera does it unabashedly with tunes designed as sexy thoroughbreds silken by that all-too-familiar “painful ecstasy” arrangements indigenous to the black soul camp. Listen to Bad Habits and Stop The World and you get the drift. But certainly Maxwell has a lot more going for him than, say, the doe-eyed soul brother Usher’s deathly bliss stylings.

Maxwell, who prefers to be known by his first name, may be regarded as a veteran of the R&B/soul crowd but he has a stronger vibe, a tad more adventurous rhythmic quality that is neither cloying nor melting typical of his counterparts in this side of the music business.

Cold puts together a dexterous horn section while Pretty Wings sounds conventionally mainstream without the syrupy soul.

But the horns are a nice touch when heavy synths have all but obliterated brass musicianship last seen in the likes of Earth, Wind and Fire, and Tower of Power.