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Critic's Review
Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
As the ESP-Disk recordings are digitally remastered (finally, thank God), it's a true blessing to have the two albums vocalist Patty Waters recorded for the label in 1965 (Patty Waters Sings) and 1966 (College Tour) on a single CD. The historical significance of these recordings cannot be overstated. Since Waters' output until the late 20th and early 21st centuries was limited to these two recordings and some work she did with Marzette Watts (a vocal reading of Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman" recorded in 1968), this pair of records presented properly in a digital format is necessary. Waters' influence has been noted by Yoko Ono, Diamanda Galas, Diana Rogerson, and Patti Smith -- check her adaptation of the traditional ballad "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair," for a notable reason why. Waters, whose own influences were Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughan, wanted to record standards for Bernard Stollman's label (the pair had been introduced by no less than Albert Ayler). He told her to write her own material, She did, and a few days later (in 1965), he recorded Patty Waters Sings with pianist Burton Greene's Trio. (Waters composed all but one of the tunes on the set on her piano.) "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair" is one of American free jazz/improvisational music's seminal moments. But it's the range of her singing that is so impressive, with its otherworldly voice that was stark and smoky with a deceptively restrained range. There's the deep jazz blues in "Why Can't I Come to You," and the whispery ballad, "You Thrill Me," which has been covered by many other singers for starters. But the drama in "Sad Am I, Glad Am I," and the sheer heartbreaking skeletal minimalism in "I Can't Forget You" is so utterly captivating and devastating it doesn't prepare the listener for the 13-minute adaptation of "Black Is the Color..." that simply burns with white, screaming heat , where she bleats and screams as if she were John Coltrane's saxophone on Live in Seattle. The College Tour album offers another fine example of her many gifts as a singer, as she is featured in a variety of settings -- from singing with Giuseppi Logan's quartet -- with Dave Burrell on piano -- to a wailing "Wild Is the Wind," with the Burton Greene Trio, to an intimate reading of Rodgers & Hart's "It Never Entered My Mind," with pianist Ran Blake. The College Tour performance is recorded mostly outside, displaying the considerable improvisational gifts Waters had at her command. She was music itself, untamed, free and utterly untouched by artistic artifice or pretension. As both a singer and a songwriter, Patty Waters is a treasure. She left music in 1968 to travel Europe and Morocco, and then raised a son in California. She returned to recording in 1996 with Love Songs, a series of duets with pianist Jessica Williams, and recorded a live album entitled Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe: Live in San Francisco 2002, which was released in 2005. She also performed at the 2004 Vision Festival. The excellent Water Records label (no relation) has issued You Thrill Me, a collection of demos she recorded for another album, some demos she recorded for Columbia in the early 1960s, as well as outtakes, live performances, and even a Jax Beer commercial. All of that is good and well, and Waters' return to the scene is a welcome one, but it is this CD of her Complete ESP-Disk Recordings which is the one that will bear her mark and influence best, and the one that history will remember.
