Weekes, who served as Executive Producer, is supported by a superb cast of Southern California musicians including pianists Danny Grissett and Eddy Olivieri, bassist Trevor Ware, drummer Sherman Ferguson, saxophonist/flutist Louis Van Taylor, guitarists Phil Upchurch and Greg Cook, trumpeter Scott Steen, and the esteemed producer, string arranger/conductor, and violinist Mark Cargill. With Weekes’ vivid and velvet vocals, and her simpatico ensemble, augmented by Cargill’s magnificent string arrangements, this recording features the music of Oscar Brown, Jr., Duke Pearson, Sting, George Gershwin, J.M. Williams and Danny Barker, Marcos Valle, Rogers & Hart, William Barnes, Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer, Victor Youmans, Natalie Cole, and Thelonious Monk.
This CD, a fully remixed, remastered, and reorchestrated commercial version of a 2002 promotional recording made for clubs and festivals, features vignettes inspired by the New York stories Weekes heard from her family—especially by her father, the late Martin Weekes. Those stories are sonically signatured by a diverse selection of ballads, blues, a bossa nova, standards, and a jazz classic. Her grandparents, Wilfred and Nettie Weekes, owned a Harlem luncheonette located on the corner of St. Nicholas Ave. & 155th St., which featured some famous customers including Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Harry Belafonte, Lena Horne, Sarah Vaughan and Diahann Carroll. Brown’s bouncy “Hazel’s Hips,” sets the scene where another customer, Sidney Poitier, fell in love with Weekes’ Aunt Dolores, who worked at the luncheonette.
Valle’s “Summer Samba,” celebrates the maiden voyage of a young couple’s love affair. Pearson’s “Cristo Redentor,” with lyrics from the Negro spiritual “I Want Jesus To Walk With Me,” provides the rich, reverent resonance for a religious encounter at the famous St. John The Divine cathedral.
Battery Park below Lower Manhattan, is the location for Sting’s “Sister Moon,” paired with lyrics from Gershwin’s “Summertime,” where a young man contemplates his romantic future, while the Rodgers & Hart classic, “My Romance” and Cole’s uptempo “Lovers”—with background vocals by Lynne Fiddmont—provides the sumptuous sonic settings for a dynamic romantic duet. “Don’t You Feel My Leg” is a bluesy, guys-night-out-at-the-club selection about the limits of flirtation.
The centerpiece of the CD is “The Bar Suite”: A three-track opus Weekes dedicated to her late father, who died in 2016. He was a trombonist and vocalist who graduated New York’s High School of Music and Art, and was a nightclub singer who emulated Frank Sinatra, and turned down a recording contract. The suite consists of Barnes’ “Something Cool,” and two Arlen/Mercer gems, “One For My Baby,” and “The Man That Got Away,” which introduces our anonymous lady who drowns her troubles after hours. The Ware/Olivieri-arranged, Latin-tinged title track, is a musical letter of lament sung by our lonely lady back at her Long Island home, longing for her lover. On Youmans’ “More Than You Know,” arranged by the Grammy nominated, L.A. vocalist Sue Raney, Weekes leaves it up to the listener to decide whether the damsel from Long Island found her man, or it’s the start of another couple’s more perfect union.
Those torch songs have been burning in Weekes ever since she started singing at the age of four. Growing up in a musical household, she heard Sinatra, Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Barbra Streisand, Shirley Bassey and Nancy Wilson. Weekes—who also played the viola—took voice lessons with Gwendolyn Wyatt, Jeanne and Phil Moore, Jr., Catherine Hansen, Sue Fink and Sue Raney. She performed in many Southern California venues including the Jazz Bakery, the Sky Room, and Vitello’s. She also performed at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, and at the New Rochelle Jazz Festival in New York. Her debut CD, Pure Imagination, was released in 2019, followed by her Christmas album, The Gathering, in 2020, and her 2021 EP, My Romance—A Special Valentine.
Amber Weekes’ ’Round Midnight Re-Imagined is her soulful, swinging tribute to her late father, and his stories of New York!
1. Hazel’s Hips 2:33
2. Summer Samba 4:27
3. Cristo Redentor / I Want Jesus To Walk With Me 5:02
4. Sistermoon/Summertime 5:05
5. My Romance 3:28
6. Don’t You Feel My Leg 3:14
The Bar Suite:
7. Something Cool 5:11
8. One For My Baby 3:50
9. The Man That Got Away 4:31
10. Lovers 4:00
11. ’Round Midnight 4:58
12. More Than You Know 5:49
Amber Weekes - VOCALS
Danny Grissett, Eddy Olivieri - Piano
Trevor Ware - Bass
Sherman Ferguson - Drums
Louis Van Taylor - Alto Saxophone
Phil Upchurch, Greg Cook - Guitar
Scott Steen - Trumpet
Mark Cargill - Producer, String Arranger/Conductor, Violin
Hand Claps: Trevor Ware, Sherman Ferguson, Danny Grissett, Peter C. Ross
