Press

“Mandy’s new recording the Joni Book, is one of the most successful takes on Joni’s music I’ve heard. Great arrangements that keep the integrity of Joni’s tunes but makes them sound fresh and new. Also the laid-back and confident vocal approach from Mandy that makes this recording very strong.”

Brad Barker – JAZZ FM 91.1

 

“Folksinger was too limiting a term to describe Joni Mitchell, just as Mandy Lagan, in pushing the boundaries in new and original ways, is no mere jazz vocalist. This combination makes Lagan’s project “The Joni Book” a must-listen — make that “must” experience – for music fans from both schools.”

Mark Rheaume – CBC Radio

 

“Lagan rises to the challenge of honouring Mitchell’s legacy…. [she] wraps her voice around the layers of lyrical meaning and shading embedded in these great songs.”

Barry Livingston – WholeNote Magazine

Reviews

I first met Mandy Lagan when she was a music student at Mohawk College. She already displayed considerable musical talent at that time, while possessing a keen interest in the music of legendary singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell. After hearing Mitchell’s recording Court and Spark when she was a teenager, Lagan was “forever changed.”

 

Flash forward several decades, and Mandy Lagan has released a sparking tribute to her muse, titled The Joni book, featuring a roster of Canada’s finest jazz artists. She couldn’t ask for a better or more simpatico group of musicians than Kevin Turcotte, Jim Vivian, Ted Quinlan, Dave Restivo, Andrew Downing and Blair Mackay.

 

Lagan rises to the challenge of honouring Mitchell’s legacy, while making these tunes her own. She has lived with this material a long time, and accordingly, wraps her voice around the layers of lyrical meaning and shading embedded in these great songs.

 

It is truly a group effort though, and all the musicians delve into both familiar (My Old Man, All I Want) and less familiar material (Conversation) with dedication and zeal. Everyone contributes to the inventive arrangements, ranging from the playful interplay on Help Me (featuring an outstanding trumpet solo by Turcotte), to the masterful textural arc they craft on Song for Sharon.

 

Somewhere, at her home in Los Angeles, Joni Mitchell is smiling.

 

Barry Livingston – WholeNote Magazine.

Reviewing Mandy Lagan’s “Verses”

by Cathy Riches

All those who remember A Child’s Garden of Verses, raise your hand. The influential collection of poems by Robert Louis Stevenson has been a favourite of parents and children since it was published in 1885. It is also the inspiration for a gorgeous new CD by Mandy Lagan.

Lagan is a Toronto-based singer, composer, and educator who collaborated with a number of other composers, chiefly David Occhipinti, to produce Verses. Occhipinti also co-produced much of the album and his stunning, innovative guitar work is a strong presence throughout the disc.

But this isn’t kids’ stuff – unless you have some musically very sophisticated kids. This is grown-up, harmonically rich, and complex music that does full justice to the imaginative poetry it’s based on. For some composers, setting poems that weren’t originally intended to be songs – no repeated choruses and distinct A and B sections, for instance – would be a big challenge. But Lagan, Occhipinti, and company have seamlessly wedded the two art forms, devising music that artfully evokes the ideas in the poems. “Shadow March” from “North-west Passage” and “My Shadow” are particularly fine examples of this.

A portion of the work is heavily influenced by early Joni Mitchell – I wonder if there’s a Canadian musician of a certain vintage who isn’t influenced by Mitchell to some extent – and that’s apt given the wordiness of the source material. When a musician needs to impart a lot of ideas, Mitchell is a great model to base the writing on since she tends to deftly cram in a lot of syllables per line.

Many of the musicians are from the jazz world – Nancy Walker on piano, Andrew Downing on bass, cello and harmonium, Kevin Turcotte on trumpet, Ross Wooldridge on clarinet – so things sometimes get pleasantly jazzy, but there are also touches of folk, classical, Celtic, and perhaps even a little Bartok, so it all adds up to an original and category-defying album: a musical umami.

Lagan’s strong, clear voice ably handles the melodic leaps and pirouettes and is a lovely vehicle for the poems. The addition of strings, (real strings!) courtesy of the Madawaska String Quartet, on several tracks is a treat, as are the cleverly arranged woodwinds by Andrew Downing, on “The Lamplighter.”

The inclusion in the liner notes of artwork by Charles Robinson from the second edition of A Child’s Garden of Verses is a charming touch.

If you want to enchant your real child or your inner child, Verses is an altogether lovely way to do it.

www.mandylagan.ca

Cathy Riches is a freelance writer and music reviewer.

East York resident Mandy Lagan is set to officially release her latest album Verses on May 1 at 8 p.m. at Hugh’s Room with an all-star cast of local musicians that includes Juno-nominated guitarist David Occhipinti.

Occhipinti is nominated for this year’s Juno Awards, airing April 6, in the best contemporary jazz album category for his album Forty Revolutions.

His imprint is all over Lagan’s latest work – her third CD – from the sublime guitar work to the wonderfully written songs, for which he co-wrote many of them with Lagan.

Lagan, who previewed a couple of the songs at a recent gig at The Rex Hotel Jazz and Blues Bar, has gone out on a limb with this album.

Absent are the standard familiar jazz covers that always provide an easy entry point for new listeners.

Instead, she has dusted off a near 125-year-old set of poems from an author more known for his classic children’s novels and put all original music to them.

And it works, in fact it soars. No worries about being out on a limb, here.

While most readers are probably more familiar with Robert Louis Stevenson’s novels such as Treasure Island and Kidnapped, Lagan was apparently swept away as a kid by A Child’s Garden of Verses written in 1885.

Several decades, a husband (Joe, a professional pianist in his own rite, who collaborated on two of the songs) and a couple of kids later, she revisited the poetry, and was inspired to put music to it.

While the poems may have sparked Lagan’s imagination when she was young, the songs she and her collaborators have wrought will probably be most appreciated by adults (although there’s certainly nothing unsuitable for kids).

The poems themselves are hopelessly dated from the 19th century and that’s not a bad thing – sophisticated and literate as they are. In fact it works sublimely well with the theme of childhood since for adults our own childhood days are also hopelessly receding into the past.

If the poems and our nostalgia set the itinerary for the fond trip back through childhood, it’s the music of Lagan and her collaborators that ultimately transports us there.

Again she has achieved an inspired balance in the songwriting, arranging and playing. As befitting the impeccable talent Lagan has assembled, the music is sophisticated with many hues and colours, ultimately making it rewarding for repeated listens.

Yet, at the same time – and this may be the album’s brilliance – she entirely captures the simpleness, the playfulness, the innocence of childhood.

It’s like your childhood condensed, distilled and forever preserved on a magical CD.

She has captured the innocence of a summer shower, the magic of toy soldiers, the exhilaration of a playground swing, the scariness of a shadow-filled room as the sun goes down, the magic of faraway lands, the playfulness of the wind, the child in us that never dies.

As such, this album is not one you’ll want to spin as a backdrop to chores, dinner, dancing, a party or anything like that; for that stick to Lagan’s second CD (or any other more standard jazz fare in your collection).

Treat this CD like a charming, heartfelt soundtrack or musical – set to your own childhood. Put the headphones on, press play, close your eyes and let the journey begin.

Reserve tickets for the official release concert at www.hughsroom.com.

For more on Lagan and Verses, check out the Music Notes blog at www.insidetoronto.com.

• Norm Nelson