The Late Set (Anzic Records)

Hilary Gardner / Ehud Asherie

Released October 27, 2017

DownBeat Four-and-a-Half-Star Review

YouTube:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lh_VaooIrYIfSeMAJc4kIvhK5Auk67TVE

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/album/5LHsRrV90jKYo4qi8ZzUkF?si=u51ALVDmSKCUNG4L2_9lHw

About:

Taxicab tires hiss on wet pavement as you descend an unassuming staircase on an unassuming side street in Greenwich Village. Entering the club, you shrug off your coat, damp from the mist that is turning to rainfall outside—no matter. You’ve arrived.
Inside, candlelight and shadows dance on the walls and you find a seat at a corner table. You order a Manhattan on the rocks and survey the room. At eleven o’clock on any given weeknight, your fellow patrons run the gamut: clandestine lovers, surely hiding from the scrutiny of midtown’s glare; young musicians awaiting the after-hours jam session and a chance to blow a few choruses of bebop; older musicians, finished with their gigs and communing among themselves; a melancholy neighborhood drunk or two; and the serious listeners who, day jobs be damned, stayed for the music that only happens at this hour.
And that’s why you’re here: the music. Notes suspended in midair like silvery dewdrops on a spider web in the moonlight. Antique songs, unfurled languidly, taking their time. Sad. Seductive. Funny. Contemplative. Music for night people.
The pianist touches the keys. The singer smiles and takes a breath. Welcome to the late set.
Hilary Gardner

Track Listing:

1. Shadow Waltz 04:14

2. Sweet and Slow 05:01

3. A Ship Without a Sail 05:22

4. After You’ve Gone 04:06

5. I Never Has Seen Snow 03:49

6. I Used to Be Color Blind 03:37

7. Everything I’ve Got 03:07

8. Make Someone Happy 03:32

9. Seems Like Old Times 03:52

Personnel:

Hilary Gardner: voice

Ehud Asherie: piano

Recorded on December 10, 2016 at Systems Two Recording Studio, by Joe Marciano

Assistant Engineering by Max Ross and Andrew Cavaciuti
Mixed by Joe Marciano at Systems Two Recording Studio
Mastered by Gene Paul at G&J Audio
Design by Steve Skladany
Photography by Shervin Lainez
Styling by Laura Mitchell
Photographed at Mezzrow, Greenwich Village, New York City
Produced by Eli Wolf

Review:

Like a perfect soufflé, Hilary Gardner and Ehud Asherie’s delicate and tasty new album combines simple ingredients in a magical way: just a singer, a piano and a lovingly curated selection of songs from the Great American Songbook. The Late Set conjures up a nostalgic vision, creating an intimate, after-hours vibe with a collection of songs by masters—Harry Warren and Al Dubin, Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers, Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen and Jule Styne among them—that are by turns melancholy, romantic and rollicking. Gardner, a classically trained singer who is also a member of the singing trio Duchess, is blessed with an exceptionally pure tone and a simplicity of expression that brings out the nuances of the great lyrics herein. In Asherie, she has the right person for the job: He’s a superb accompanist whose sensitivity provides ballast for an exploratory jazz spirit that finds expression in his solos. Gardner and Asherie have worked together for 10 years, and it shows in the way she soars against his reliable, rock-solid groove. The album opens with two 1930s-era gems by Warren and Dubin that are rarely performed today, the romantic “Shadow Waltz” and the sexy “Sweet And Slow.” “After You’ve Gone,” from 1918, gives Asherie a chance to break into some convincing stride. Berlin’s “I Used To Be Color Blind” will be a revelation to those unfamiliar with it. Gardner is perky and salty on Rodgers and Hart’s “Everything I’ve Got” and sweetly nostalgic on “Seems Like Old Times.” The Late Set is delightful, recalling a bygone, more genteel era of American popular song.

Allen Morrison (DownBeat)