There’s an inexplicable appeal to a late-night vocal album that draws from jazz and pop, has just even lyric intrigue to be edgy, while simultaneously sounding seductive and smooth. We’ve heard elements of such a sound from the jazz poet Ken Nordine, the iconoclastic Mose Allison, the witty Bob Dorough, the classy Georgie Fame, and even to some extent Nina Simone and Gil Scott-Heron. Of more recent vintage, Chris Stamey has captured a similar vibe on his 2019 New Songs for the 20th Century and his 2020 A Brand-New Shade of Blue. Now that same label, Omnivore, presents us with another gem, Wesley Stace’s Late Style, a completely fresh sound for the UK, now Philadelphia-based writer and musician formerly known as John Wesley Harding.
Stace turned to David Nagler, the musical director of his portable variety show, the Cabinet of Wonders, to be the musical half of a co-writing team. So, because the many influences are present, the results sound both fresh and familiar at the same time. There are touches of jazz and Latin, with a contemporary keyboard rather than guitar focus. There’s a mature confidence that infuses “Where the Bands Are” and playfulness in “Hey Director” and “Just Sayin’.” Every so often there is a phrase that stands out, as if he’s calling to those who have reached a similar stage in their musical evolution to adopt a different stance. “Talk lower, move slower/ Your options have changed” in “Do Nothing If You Can” or “It’s late, but we’ll get it done/Well done, everyone!” from “Well Done Everyone.”
Stace had originally imagined a record where his vocals would be backed by a late-night jazz club kind of combo, but the pandemic intervened. So, using modern technology, tracks were assembled from Philadelphia, from New York, where Nagler built tracks from keyboards, acoustic guitars, and virtual instruments; from San Francisco, where Wes’s longtime friend and collaborator Chris von Sneidern (a solo artist in his own right and sometime member of the Flamin’ Groovies) added electric guitar, vocals, horns and the drums of Prairie Prince (The Tubes, Todd Rundgren, Jefferson Starship); and from Chicago, where Kelly Hogan and Nora O’Connor of the Flat Five added harmonies. Hogan and O’Conner are also half of Stace’s acapella quartet Love Hall Tryst. Mauro Refosco is the percussionist with horns from Brian J. Campbell (saxophone) and Danny Cao (trumpet).
The prototypical late-night radio song and this album’s centerpiece is the cinematic and direly apocalyptic “Your Bright Future” with Stace’s voice often in a sinister whispering mode as Nagler’s keyboards and Prince’s insistent drums propel it forward. Just as it seems smooth, an unexpected rhythm or note enters, a quality that often surfaces throughout the album. It’s reflective of these times – bleak, in need of uplift, in need of a smile or warm embrace. The brighter moments are in “Hey, Director,” the harmonious “Well Done, Everyone,” and the poppy, horn infused “Just Sayin’,” an indelible one that may linger in with you for days. The best noirish tunes are “The Impossible She,” “Do Nothing If You Can,” and the rather obtuse closer, “How You All Work Me.”
Good luck filing this one. Is it jazz? Is it pop?) It doesn’t matter.
