Linda Marks’ latest CD Kindness is a greatest hits collection of sorts. She’s recorded some of these songs in the past for previous album while one song happen to be new. Some songs here have new arrangements and others have new mixes.
As always, Marks’ voice is a smooth, silky sheet that glides across her piano melodies or whichever instrument her arrangement requires. A common theme running through her original songs is a positive call for people to put aside smaller differences and think in terms of the bigger picture, people getting along and living in harmony.
“Be The Light” opens her new disc with a perfectly accented piano chord progression supported by Steve Latansion’s pretty pedal steel line. Marks sings this call to humanity using lovely sustains to make this song and the listener’s heart feel lifted. Instruments and voice come together into a flag that flutters in a brisk wind and stands strong even as it’s constructed of gentle, mellow threads.
“All One Human Race” again finds Marks singing her heart out and expressing her humanitarian impulses. Here, she calls on people to support all races, religions, and genders. Her soft, sustained vocal timbre stretches well over the pedal steel flow of sweet notes and Valerie Thompson’s warm, expansive cello mood. Marks makes the listener believe in her humanitarian impulses in the way she keeps her voice filled with hope and joy.
Title track “Kindness” is a down tempo affair in which Marks unfurls her call for warmth with a kitten’s sense of play. She unravels her ball of yarn at a gentle pace, letting her listener feel each warm thought. Supported by sweet, floating notes, Marks emits only enough voice at a time to tug the listener through her tender vision.
“Something That We Do” find Marks wrapping her voice like a ribbon around sweet breezes of piano and string instruments. Her thick, bright piano notes make a fine backbone to this love theme. She uses her sustains to give lift to her music and message. It is a fine use of techniques and accompaniment to bring to life this pleasant ode to joy.
Getting a country flavored banjo bounce, “Uplift Me,” an entirely new song, lets Marks show what she can do with light accompaniment. Her high pretty voice fills the space in well as she creates an Americana song out of thin air. She sounds as home in this rustic setting as she does with her jazzy piano material.
Perky and upbeat, Marks’ “Between Night And Day” finds the Boston singer-songwriter waving her rangy voice over jazzy piano and alongside a loosey goosey saxophone line. Mark’s sunny personality comes through loud and clear as she has the musical caliber to express many kinds of thoughts of feeling. There are so many nice touches, fun musical twists, and silky smooth changes in the vocal line that the listener wants to hear this song again and again.
“Light Up The Love” feels more like a romantic ballad-singer-songwriter crossbreed. Simultaneously about loving someone as well as loving the world, Marks sprinkles it with bright piano notes. Over her shiny notes, she sends her voice out with curls in her vocal lines, making her voice move in ways that entice the ear and sweep over her accompaniment with artful ease.
“Take Me To The River” reminds of the old Americana songs from previous centuries. One can picture Marks walking along a river, writing down her thoughts, then turning then into a song by lantern light. Brittle acoustic notes have that old time feel and Marks uses self-restraint to capture more of that yesteryear. There is also a soulfulness here. One can feel the singer-songwriter’s need to be cleansed of her troubles and that is where the song works bests, it’s message.
A forlorn sense of yearning permeates Marks’ “Love And Time,” Mark’s breezy piano ballad. Marks contrasts a down tempo piano line with an interval of vocal sustains. The result is a lovely emission of voice and feeling. She makes it clear, in a warm way, that time must be made for the ultimate emotion and she expresses sincerity with each vocal assertion.
Marks visits her “Home” with a tuft of warmth inside each carefully placed vocal sustain. It’s uncanny how this singer-songwriter can balance a series of light piano notes with the easy flow of her voice. The emotive quality of the piano melody back bones her voice while also managing to add a secondary layer of warmth to her piece.
Marks employs a jaunty pace for her voice and her accompanying players on “Virtual Pie In The Sky.” A playful melody makes a good playground for Marks’ witty take down on the superficial romances that live on the net. Her vocal sustains on the way out conclude her message with beautiful punctuation.
Close out track, Carole King’s “Up On The Roof,” lets Marks go more into a jazzy rock and roll format. She taps out a rhythmic groove with her piano. Meanwhile, her saxophone player Dave Birkin plays a colorful, lively piece, its intervals of spirit are just what this song needs to express satisfaction in solitude. With such a snazzy backdrop, Marks lets loose with soulful vocal assertions, expressing her feelings with personality.
Guests include Doug Hammer, Jackie Damsky, Valerie Thompson, Andy Daigle, Steve Latanision, Craig Akin, Janna Mana Frohlich, Woody Carpinella, Dave Birkin, Mark Bishop Evans, EJ Ouellette, Miki Matsuki, Dave Zox, and Tom Prasada-Rao. Marks, with her gathering of previous album songs and a few new takes, shows she’s an artist who has been true to her vision since she reentered the music scene some years ago. She still layers her songs with fine intricate instrumentation while using her vocal techniques to stir the listener’s heart. Bravo.
