Robyn Spangler - Last Call
(Op Records, 2023)
West Coast vocalist Robyn Spangler brings down the lights, pulling her stool up to the microphone to the side of her pianist for an eclectic set of something old and something new. Consider this collection of songs as forward-thinking cocktail music, from the lounge of the future that shares its creative spirit with the brilliant bar scene from Star Wars (20th Century Fox, 1977). Just not that far in the future. One could envision Spankler's intimate setlist from Last Call being featured in a movie set in 2050, where much of the old remains, making room for the new.
Joining Spanger is the pianist Todd Schroeder, who the singer had first heard a decade ago, knowing then she wanted to work with him, which she did over her next five recordings, which notably include: Something Cool: The Billy Barnes Sessions (Op Records, 2017) and Christmas Is... (Op Records, 2018). Schroeder also arranged and produced the present recording, curating a 10-song recital ranging from Irving Berlin's 1932 composition, "How Deep Is The Ocean" to Adele's 2015 song "Hello" with several surprises nestled within. Spangler and Schroeder, in equal parts, summon a shifting mood throughout the playlist, beginning with a humid interpretation of Amanda McBroom's "Hot In Here" from her 1999 Portraits (Gecko Records) before turning up the heat with a strolling and bluesy "Kiss," transforming Prince's super slinky R&B into a Sinatra-style saloon song that would be equally appropriate as a Bogart and Bacall movie exchange.
Spangler reigns things in a bit with a wholesomely expressed "Skylark" before turning introspective and vulnerable on Sting's "Fragile" and the Eagles' "I Can't Tell You Why" before rebounding with a confident bar booth swing at Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind." Schroeder distills all but the essence of Joel from the song, playing impressive support for a grand ballad. The diptych "How Deep Is The Ocean" and Stevie Wonder's "Until You Come Back To Me" tell the story of love, then love lost and hoped to return. Spangler's durable voice handles both songs with equal aplomb, despite the 40 years between the songs. Fabulously emotive is Spangler's performance of Adele's "Hello," bringing the song to the torch level. The pair close the disc with an original song, "Second Wind" that Spangler and Schroeder composed several years before. It provides a fitting coda to this newly imagined bar recital, where the popular becomes art.