We Are Marshell

I'd never heard of Marshell Jones until about an hour ago, when I was lying in bed trying to decide if I needed a cup of coffee bad enough to get up, and I was flipping through some Amazon music on my Kindle and a promo appeared for Evidence of Things Not Seen by said Marshell Jones. And a title like that gets my attention, for sure, so I listened to the preview (prehear?) clips, and it was a pleasing scent in my nostrils, so after I did get up and make / have coffee, I revved up the Spotify and, after a little trouble, found Evidence of Things Not Seen. (BTW, searching under her name didn't get me there, but searching under the title of the album did. Go figure.)

And I must say . . . this is quite a different color of horse.

The first song "Can You Tell?" is a cappella. The second song, "Fetu Lele," is jazzy, but with an Indian flavor courtesy of a sitar. 

The 3rd song, "Walkin Prayer," starts with a drum solo, and makes me think of John Coltrane's last posthumous album, Interstellar Space. Marshell's voice over the drums (the only instrument) is particularly sweet here, and it sounds great.

The fourth song gets off to a funky start, more like the jazz sound I was expecting, and Marshell's lovely voice just slips right on top of that funk, icing on a tasty cake. 

"Gotta light?" is another a cappella, but with a twist. Marshell does a rap over her own voice doing a bebop scat thang. It not only works, it's stunning. 

And then we really get down to business. The first five songs are 22 minutes and 1 second long.

The last two songs are 20 minutes and 1 second long.

The title track begins with a cello solo. Then Marshell's voice comes in on top of that, and doubles in a background vocal which reflects and accents the main vocal. It's mesmerizing. You really feel like you've entered into the land of the spirit. Or "where the flesh meets the spirit world / where the traffic is thin." (One of my favorite lines from a Bowie song EVer.) And the cello doubles as well, but there's no other instrumentation. I've got to say, this is a song I'm going to be listening to quite a few more times.

And then the grand finale, "Like There's No Tomorrow," which is back to a funky sound, with bright, 70s Brothers Johnson-ish guitar riffs and brmmp brmmmp brmmmp bass. Very catchy, very bouncey, but not in a vacuous way. It's a pretty perfect counterpoint to the solemn seven minutes plus of "Evidence of Things Not Seen" which preceded it. In fact, this could easily be a pop song--and I don't mean that in any kind of negative way. It's just such a catchy thing. "Could you love me like it's 1999?" Ha ha, nice tip of the purple hat there, Marshell. (Or were you wearing a raspberry beret?)

ANYway . . . a truly great album. Available on Amazon (MP3 $7.99, CD $9.95), iTunes ($9.99), Bandcamp (download $7), and Spotify (free). Unfortunately, I don't see anyplace where you can buy it on vinyl. 

And btw, I also found two videos of Marshell Jones on The You Tub. One was an interview (Marshell Jones at Artscape Music Festival. Baltimore TV Interview) which ends with a "teaser" from the first song of the album. It only has 12 views, which is depressing, so you should help out on that if you have dime time. The other is a heario, Marshell Jones Reachin Music Video, but it does have some nice pictures of Marshell in action. And only 8 views, so you know what to do.