Classy cat.
San Franciscan bassist/guitarist/singer John Lester lived in Paris and London, but settled in Amsterdam after that. There he recorded his eleven new songs for this third CD, but also during sessions in London and Berkeley, California.
Musically Lester exactly stays his course. He merges influences from jazz and singer-songwriter into infectious, cleverly rounded melodies. Their moody and spacious foundation on acoustic bass and semi-acoustic guitar is colored intelligently and in a swinging way with drums, percussion, piano and occasional horns.
Lester’s somewhat hoarse voice underlines his personally voiced worries about the American political climate just as evocatively as he sings about love. He also swings in a light and jazzy way when he sings humorously about Parisian dog poo.
Lester won American prizes for three of these songs, but all eleven have the class that make his discovery probable.
***1/2
Published on www.popmagazineheaven.nl together with Heaven no 53, September-October 2008/no.5