Blue notes

Singer Brigitte Mitchell has established a considerable following in Hong Kong over the past 10 years with her live performances. She is now so much a part of the local jazz scene that it comes as something of a surprise that her new CD, Don't Explain on Silva Records, is also her debut release.

The album has been worth waiting for. Produced by her husband and drummer Gary Da Silva, and co-produced by bassist Rudy Balbuena and pianist Bob Mocarsky, it features guest appearances from guitarist Tommy Ho, pianist Bobby West and saxophonists Blaine Whittaker, Paulo Levi and Albert Wing. But it's Mitchell's show.

Born in Cape Town, South Africa, she began her musical career after winning a singing contest, and went on to work in musicals and cabaret, gravitating towards jazz and performing in clubs. 'I grew into jazz because I let it take hold of me,' she says. 'This is how I wanted to feel and sound.'

A parallel career as a fashion designer brought her to Asia and, having settled in Hong Kong, she got to know musicians on the local jazz scene and started singing again. She has worked extensively with most of the players on the album - particularly Da Silva, Balbuena and Mocarsky - and the rapport is evident in a set which Da Silva decided should be recorded live in the studio.

'A key part of Brigitte's magic on stage comes from the spontaneous interaction she shares with her band and the excitement that comes from her natural ability to improvise around what the band are playing, right there in the moment,' he says.

'She has a versatile voice which has been compared to Dianne Reeves and Blossom Dearie, but she has a special affinity for Billie Holiday's compositions and performs two of them here - God Bless the Child and Don't Explain.'

There are also two Horace Silver compositions, Doodlin', which is arranged by Whittaker and features his alto sax, and Nica's Dream. West arranges and plays piano on Stevie Wonder's Another Star, but all other tracks are arranged by Mocarsky. John Coltrane made My Favourite Things a jazz standard, but it is usually performed as an instrumental, the Oscar Hammerstein lyric being considered the property of Julie Andrews. Mitchell makes it her own, as she does the Julie London vehicle Cry Me a River. We also get David Paich's Georgy Porgy, and the standards Moonlight in Vermont and That Ole Devil.