Gill Manly

Gill Manly, once described as Ronnie Scott's Club's favourite jazz diva, describes this collection of songs as representing some of the jewels she has guarded in a personal treasure trove of 'songs I want to record one day'. Timing of course was the key, as with any artistic and creative process you need to recognize when is the right moment to use a composition to represent fully it's content and poetry. The title track "The Lies of Handsome Men" is a tongue in cheek biographical nod to her own past! What a song though!  Gill was inspired by listening to Blossom Dearie perform it back in the 80's in the dark of the Pizza on the Park Music Room. As on her two previous recordings she has included a song by Fran Landesman, this time "Before Love Went out of Style".

'All Manly's vocal skills are immediately apparent: an ability to combine informal, almost conversational intimacy with technical control; an adept way of delivering a lyric so that its emotional content is delivered straight to the listener without a hint of sentimentality or contrivance; a lightly borne flexibility with regard to timbre and dynamics.' LondonJazz