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Not Fade Away - Reissue Review from Issue #68 Mar-Apr 2007

Catherine Howe

What A Beautiful Place (Numero Group)

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Recorded in early 1971 at London’s Trident Studios and distributed in minute quantities to the music press, Catherine Howe’s What A Beautiful Place peaks with “It Comes With The Breezes”, an apotheosis of transatlantic pop. The doubled flutes and vibraphone support a sort of English bossa nova, and the song itself suggests an interrupted summer reverie. When Howe sings, “This morning, walking down on the beach/I was wondering if tonight, in my sleepless bed/I could hear the boats come in,” it’s as if she’s telegraphing her own dream. Some of What A Beautiful Place is reminiscent of Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter, but the record wears a contented, leisurely air that puts one in mind of Jackie DeShannon’s contemporaneous To Be Free. With arranger and producer Bobby Scott’s piano front and center, Howe proves herself an excellent singer in the jazz-inflected mode Scott creates. It’s a lush, haunting, unpredictable record.

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Originally Featured in Issue #68 Mar-Apr 2007

Cover of Issue #68 Mar-Apr 2007

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