Retro Review: Matt Bianco, Basia, and Swing Out Sister
The creative achievements by artists of all kinds can still be discovered and enjoyed years after their creations were new and first attracted attention. In music, it can be just as exciting to hear something wonderful for the first time, even decades after its release, as it would be to catch a brand-new song or album by an up & coming young artist. In other words, it’s never too late — and being current or trendy can be overrated.
Hence, these Retro Reviews I offer every so often. As usual, I’ve included many links to the videos for the songs discussed below. To some, it may seem excessive (especially this time), but it would also be a shame not to take advantage of this digital platform and allow readers to see and hear the music in question while reading along with the narrative (which is quite long, too). So, you are free to pause and sample each song as you go, or return later to enjoy each in full — or not at all. I’m just trying to place them at your fingertips to save you a lot of searching on YouTube.
Anyway…
In the 1980s and ’90s, a style of pop that certainly cannot be described as “rock” brought many very talented individuals and bands to the spotlight, if only for a brief time, although their work has continued to shine and gain avid devotees in the decades after those initial spurts of airplay and publicity. Some have described one particular style as “lounge jazz” — but not always as a compliment. Others classify it as “Cool Jazz,” “Smooth Jazz,” “Adult Contemporary,” “MOR (Middle of the Road),” even “Sophisti-pop.”
But we all know how labels can be misleading, inaccurate, or just plain wrong in their effort to pigeonhole a given style for the sake of convenience. The music of the artists we’re discussing today was inspired by a number of predecessors, whom they consider their idols, including the likes of Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66, Burt Bacharach, Herb Alpert, Motown, Jimmy Webb, and other prominent American and British musicians, singers, and arrangers who brought a touch of jazz and/or Brazilian stylings to contemporary pop tunes.
And this music, by both the earlier practitioners and their later disciples, is worth considerable indulgence. It is interesting, sophisticated, and dignified, offering intelligent lyrics and catchy melodies and arrangements performed by appealing artists. Best of all, it’s fun!
Which brings us to Matt Bianco, Basia, and Swing Out Sister.
Who are these people, you may ask? Perhaps their names are vaguely familiar, but nothing in particular comes to mind.
Firstly, Matt Bianco is not a person…not really, anyway. Basia is definitely a person, who was once 1/3 of Matt Bianco. And Swing Out Sister is a band, led by two individuals. Got it?
Perhaps a little explanation is in order. And we will alternate between the bands as we follow their respective career paths in as close to chronological order as possible — a bit challenging for myself as a writer and perhaps for you as a reader, but I’m all about following a straight, all-inclusive timeline.
Matt Bianco is the name of a band formed in 1983 by London-based musicians Mark Reilly, Danny White, and Polish native Basia Trzetrzelewska (pronounced “Chet-che-levska,” but who, mercifully, simply goes by Basia). Being fans of ’60s pop culture, especially spy movies, they chose a group name that, to them, sounded like a hero of such spy thrillers. Thus, Matt Bianco was born.
As for their music, it defied simple description. Their 1984 debut album, Whose Side Are You On? showed how group’s eclectic tastes, as covered throughout the LP, ran from dance club (often with a bit of Latin flavor) to straight pop, jazz, soul, and bossa nova — and sometimes a mix of two or more styles within the same song.
Reilly and White wrote the songs, with Reilly taking lead vocal on most tracks, and Basia offering fabulous backing harmonies and occasional lead vocals of her own. White provided his considerable keyboard skills for all of the arrangements.
They arrived on the music scene just as New Wave rock had reached its peak in the U.K. But Matt Bianco’s music mostly veered away from those sounds, preferring instead to carve a niche all its own.
As Basia explained in a 2004 interview, “When we came out with the first album, we also thought we weren’t going to fit in anywhere. It was ’84 and there were the New Romantics all over England — Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet — all these dressed up bands overly made-up, and our style of music really didn’t fit in, so it was a shock to us that the first album did very well in Europe, and the first single went straight up the charts in a few weeks.”
That first single, the jazzy “Get Out Your Lazy Bed” became the band’s first top 20 hit, peaking at no. 15 on the UK singles chart. It also entered the top 20 in Sweden and Switzerland, top 10 in Ireland, and climbed as high as #2 in Norway.
Other superb but very different sounding tracks include the heartbreaking torch song “More than I Can Bear” and the jaunty bossa nova “Half a Minute,” serving as a harbinger that the Brazilian style is one in which all of the band members would continue to indulge over the next few decades:
The Whose Side Are You On? album achieved a considerable international success, peaking at no. 1 in Austria, where it was the second best-selling album of 1985. It also reached the top 10 in Germany, the Netherlands and Norway. In the UK, the album charted within the top 40 and was certified Gold. All of its five singles charted in the top 30 in at least one European country.
Despite this early success with sales, boosted by touring and promotional appearances on TV, it didn’t take long for Basia to grow a tad frustrated with her largely supporting role in the band. As a talented songwriter herself (and who, as a lyricist, has mastered her second language of English better and more articulately than most Americans), she felt a need to find a more satisfying outlet. Accordingly, she and White, who had become romantically involved, decided to leave Matt Bianco in 1985 to work on what would become her first solo album, Time and Tide.
The 1987 release allowed her to further explore her love of jazz, bossa nova, and R&B. as she has cited Brazilian legend Astrud Gilberto (paid tribute to in the song “Astrud”), and Motown giants Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder as her musical heroes.
In the studio, Basia began her modus operandi of recording all of her own backing vocals and harmonies as well — no small skill itself — using hired back-up singers only for her videos and live performances.
The first hit from Time and Tide was the title song, which begins quietly, then gradually builds to a magnificent crescendo, in which Basia shows off her impressive vocal chops.
“Promises” also presents her in a festive light, reflecting her buoyant personality, which was to quickly become evident in her many TV interviews.
Meanwhile, Matt Bianco continued in a reformatted version with Mark Reilly recruiting keyboardist and studio wizard Mark Fisher as his collaborator, with Jenni Evans on vocals.
One of their biggest hits was a punchy cover of “Yeh-Yeh” originally recorded by Georgie Fame in 1965.
While this was happening, Swing Out Sister released their first album, It’s Better to Travel, in 1986. The core band consisted of Corinne Drewery on vocals, Andy Connell on keyboards, and Martin Jackson on drums (with Paul Staveley O’Duffy producing). All three were credited as the songwriters. The album featured their breakout hit titled, appropriately enough, “Breakout,” released in September of ’86. It’s a funky, mid-tempo tune aided by a brass and string arrangement, prompting one MTV on-air VJ to dub it “nouveau swing.”
“The record label hated ‘Breakout’,” Corinne said in an interview. “Acid house was coming, everything had lots of attitude, it wasn’t cool to be upbeat. But people could tell the song was sincere. Lots of people have told us it was their coming out anthem.”
Andy adds, “The horns at the start of ‘Breakout’ are what everybody remembers, but for me, it’s the aching cellos in the chorus that give the song its weight and a bittersweet quality. After the mastering, I said, ‘If that’s not a hit, we’ll never have one.’ But I was the only one who thought so. The A&R department told us, ‘Don’t expect anything.’ But ‘Breakout’ got to No 6 in America and the greatest thing was when the marching bands at NFL games played it — but with 50 more horns than we’d had.”
The video for the song was inspired by Drewery’s time as a fashion design student and model before venturing into the pop music world. Her bob hairstyle, a la silent film star Louise Brooks, turned heads and made her instantly recognizable.
Corinne’s beauty in the video is truly dazzling. especially in the final “fashion show” sequence.
The album received two Grammy Award nominations, for Best New Artist and for Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Group or Duo (“Breakout”).
The group followed that popular debut with Kaleidoscope World in 1989, containing a number of big, brassy arrangements such as the opening number, “You on My Mind” and “Waiting Game.” With an even more elaborate and crisp production than its predecessor, the album also benefited from the help of the aforementioned Jimmy Webb (composer of “Up, Up, and Away,” “Wichita Lineman,” and many others), who wrote beautiful string arrangements for the tracks “Forever Blue” and Precious Words,” and who conducted a live orchestra instead of synthesized strings. And the legendary trumpeter and horn arranger Jerry Hey, who has played and arranged for countless pop and jazz albums for the past several decades, contributed his skills leading a top-notch horn section to many of the Kaleidoscope World tracks.
It’s also on this album where we first hear songs that have a rather somber feeling (“Tainted,” “Masquerade”), demonstrating that Corinne and Andy are not necessarily all about sweetness and light all the time.
Drummer Martin Jackson decided to leave SOS during the recording of the album, leaving Corinne and Andy to continue as a duo from that point forward, with Andy creating the melodies and Corinne writing the lyrics. In a simple but eloquent comment about her songwriting, she said, “I think I’ve got a head full of words looking for a home…”
Meanwhile, the success of Basia’ Time and Tide album catapulted Basia to the big time throughout the late ’80s and into the ’90s, as she and Danny White continued their collaboration with the exquisitely polished follow-up album, London Warsaw New York. recorded in 1989 and released in February of 1990. She explained the title as a nod to expensive perfumes and fashion brands that included “London-Paris-New York” on their labels, but with the obvious substitution instead.
She also began her custom of including a few lines sung in Polish on at least one song per album, as a way of saying hello to her friends and family in Poland. One reviewer praised the album’s “jet-set sophistication that even makes Sade seem like a bit of a bumpkin.”
On “Baby You’re Mine,” bossa nova stylings are coupled with Basia’s clever use of rhymes and wordplay:
“Copernicus,” another superior track with an energetic, fast-moving tempo, celebrates the people of her beloved Poland, including a few historic figures from that country (and with a few lines in the final chorus quite appropriately sung in Polish).
Throughout this time, Matt Bianco (Reilly and Fisher) — accompanied in the studio and on tour by top session musicians and singers — continued with music on their albums that adopted stronger Latin, pop, and dance club grooves, as the band’s popularity rose with sold-out concert dates and stronger successes on the music charts. Even when their European success began to wane, their following grew and remained strong in Asia, especially in Japan.
Swing Out Sister also continued to record and tour the globe throughout the ’90s, releasing a new album roughly every other year, as time and inspiration allowed. Like Matt Bianco and Basia, SOS found an especially hardcore following in Japan and elsewhere in Asia, returning there frequently. They recorded Live at the Jazz Cafe there in 1992 (available only as an import in the U.S.), and their 1999 album Filth and Dreams was released exclusively in Japan, while some of their other songs and albums were released first on Japanese labels before worldwide distribution.
The band’s album Get in Touch with Yourself in 1992 included a cover version of the 1968 Barbara Acklin soul hit “Am I the Same Girl?” which was to be Swing Out Sister’s last #1 on the adult contemporary chart.
The band took a break from Paul O’Duffy’s sometimes suffocating collaboration in 1994, only to have him return in 1997 as producer and co-author of the Shapes and Patterns album featuring Laura Nyro’s “Stoned Soul Picnic,” “Better Make it Better,” and the opening track, “Somewhere in the World.”
In April of 1994, Basia released the album The Sweetest Illusion, after she and Danny spent over two years writing and producing its songs.
Stand-out tracks include the first single and one of her biggest hits, “Drunk on Love,” and “Third Time Lucky.”
While touring to promote the album, live performances were recorded at the Neil Simon Theatre in New York in late November of ’94, and these were released as the 16-track album Basia on Broadway in October of ‘95.
It should be said that it didn’t take long for virtually every Basia fan to also embrace Swing Out Sister, and vice-versa. The similarities between the two entities were many, and continue to be to this day: Both are fronted by a keyboards/singer composing team; both freely include musical references to the Sixties individuals and bands mentioned here earlier, i.e. pop with frequent Brazilian, jazz, and soul influences; both found unexpectedly strong followings— bordering on fanaticism — in Japan and nearby Asian countries; and both bands found early commercial success that sometimes wavered with subsequent releases, while still maintaining a fiercely loyal fan base around the world (we can add that while Basia and Danny were a romantic couple briefly, Corinne and Andy are still partners in life beyond their musical collaboration).
Swing Out Sister, while sharing those common traits with Basia and Danny, expressed a greater interest in musical experimentation. Many SOS albums include tracks that consist of aural collages that delve into the avant-garde, challenging the listener’s idea of conventional melody. They’ve also added an occasional electric guitar to the mix in their backing tracks, something not heard on Basia arrangements. But for the vast majority of the group’s output, the emphasis is squarely on creating memorable riffs and thoughtful lyrics, often heightened by lush orchestral arrangements in place of the simpler, more “organic” sounds produced on Basia’s albums.
Back to the timeline…
In 2000, Mark Reilly and Mark Fisher ended their 15-year Matt Bianco partnership after recording seven albums and touring the world. Alas, their parting of the ways would not be permanent (stay tuned…)
Swing Out Sister’s 2001 album Somewhere Deep in the Night, recorded in France, features several strikingly beautiful numbers, including the haunting “Where the Hell Did I Go Wrong” and the title track, here sung live in Japan:
An unexpected treat for Basia/Matt Bianco fans came in 2003, when the original trio reunited for a new album, Matt’s Mood. Reilly, who had given their original album another listen after some years, realized, “Hey, this is really good!” and encouraged his former bandmates to do a follow-up.
Even after a nearly 20-year break since they had last worked together, they picked up right where they left off creatively, with their songwriting, arranging, and recording skills all much improved and polished, resulting in the excellent June, 2004 release.
The songs on Matt’s Mood range from ballads to danceable numbers with generous helpings of bossa nova (“Ordinary Day”), cha-cha (“La Luna”), and more, with the lead vocals divided as evenly as possible, giving Basia more of the spotlight than she had on the Whose Side Are You On? album. And the songs in their final form more than meet the trio’s established high standards.
Perhaps the album’s most poignant track, while still clearly upbeat, is “Ronnie’s Samba,” dedicated to baritone saxophonist Ronnie Ross, who can be heard on several songs on Matt Bianco’s first album (as well as on the Beatles’ “Savoy Truffle” and Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side”) and remained a friend with the group’s founders until his death in 1991. In tribute, and with the Ross family giving their blessing, the trio incorporated some of his unused studio recordings into “Ronnie’s Samba” (and for other tracks on the album)— creating the effect of his being right there with them and giving listeners a chance to hear him once more, in effect playing on his own tribute song. As expected, the group approaches the song with class and affection. Presented more as a celebration than a dirge, the music is full of life and joyous remembrance.
After a world tour to promote Matt’s Mood, including stops in the UK, Japan, and the U.S., Basia and Danny once again departed Matt Bianco, suggesting in later interviews that after having recorded studio albums as a tight duo, dividing and sharing songs as Matt Bianco with limited album space felt a bit restrictive for them. But the music they created together remains superb.
Swing Out Sister’s Where Our Love Grows, released in 2004, was another solid album from the band, which also toured Asia extensively in 2008–2009.
A few years later, in March 2014, the group announced a project titled ‘A Moveable Feast’ to be released via Direct-to-Fan music platform PledgeMusic, saying: “We’re making a thing, don’t know what it is yet. Come along for the ride and we’ll find out together.”
Mark Reilly, after bidding Basia and Danny farewell from Matt Bianco again, resumed his partnership with Mark Fisher and brought in singer Hazel Sim, whose soft, sultry vocals helped keep Matt Bianco alive and well as a unit. And, while the characteristics of hers and Basia’s singing voices differ significantly, there was no more deserving a replacement for Basia’s unique sound than that of Hazel’s.
This version of Matt Bianco, with the core of Reilly, Fisher, and Hazel, resulted in what could be considered their masterpiece, the 2009 album Hi-Fi Bossanova.
Even the cover photo above establishes the album’s atmosphere and hints at nature of the songs within, awash in Sixties style coolness and elegance for today’s times.
The album as a whole embraces bossa nova and Latin-tinged sounds, but with even more sophisticated aplomb than before. Each song is a highly polished gem (although one or two possible exceptions just don’t seem to fit as well with the rest of the selections) impeccably produced, and, like Basia’s solo albums and Matt’s Mood, uses a more organic production approach, with instrumental emphasis on piano, acoustic guitar, and horns, and not heavily reliant on flashy extras to clutter the songs.
One of the album’s highlights, “Always on My Mind,” is almost a counterpoint of sorts to Antonio Carlos Jobim’s masterpiece, “The Waters of March,” which offers its serene observations of the small, everyday things that make up life in nature and civilization. “Always on My Mind,” cleverly reels off — at a noticeably more urgent tempo — many of life’s minor daily aggravations and inconveniences; its relatability makes it a joy to listen to:
Other tracks, such as “Natural,” featuring Hazel’s charismatic lead vocal, “Someone Else’s Dream,” and the exquisite “Anna-Marie” are unfortunately destined to remain little-known classics, except for the loyal Matt Bianco fans of the world (the album is available on CD, and can be enjoyed for free on YouTube and other platforms).
Also in 2009, Basia released her first album in fifteen years, It’s That Girl Again, bringing to fans more of her music while retaining remarkable quality and consistency. Stand-out tracks include “If Not Now Than When,” “Two Islands” with its gorgeous chorus of Basia’s multi-tracked vocals, and “Blame it on the Summer.”
In 2012, Swing Out Sister released the album Private View, consisting of acoustic re-workings of their most popular songs. But one of the new tracks for the collection is also one of their most beautiful melodies, “Incomplete Without You”:
March 2014, Swing Out Sister announced a project titled ‘A Moveable Feast’ to be released via Direct-to-Fan music platform PledgeMusic, saying: “We’re making a thing, don’t know what it is yet. Come along for the ride and we’ll find out together.” In September 2015, the band shipped their album, Rushes, to those who had signed up to the pledge for ‘A Moveable Feast’; this included short samples of the songs that Swing Out Sister were writing for the ‘Moveable Feast’ project. The content was also available as downloadable MP3 tracks to those who donated money to support the development of the album.
In November 2017, they released the culmination of the project, Almost Persuaded. The album saw general release in June 2018.
In December of 2016, Matt Bianco suffered a blow when Mark Fisher died from cancer of the esophagus at the age of 57. Despite losing his friend and longtime musical partner, Reilly continued on, working with the Dutch jazz ensemble the New Cool Collective, and releasing the Matt Bianco album Gravity in 2019.
As he said in a 2021 interview, “Mark [Fisher] fought his personal battle for almost two years, and he was very brave throughout the whole time. Prior to his diagnosis, I had started working with the New Cool Collective more as a side project, in my mind, because at the time, I wanted to keep the two things for me, Matt Bianco and New Cool Collective, separated from one another. But when Mark passed away, I just felt natural for me to carry on, purely because I thought that it was right for me to do so, given the fact that the original line-up of Matt Bianco, when we started, it was made by me and different people. As sad as Mark’s passing was and still is, I just wanted to keep on working as Matt Bianco with different people, trying new musical alleyways and not thinking of replacing Mark in the slightest”.
On Gravity’s “Heart in Chains,” track, Reilly shares vocals with Elisabeth Troy:
“To be honest,” he said, “the last album that I did, called Gravity, it was very much jazz influenced, an album that I recorded like a jazz combo. It was like the Full Monty; Jazz drums, double bass, piano and two horns, the lot! That album is the one that I consider really my “jazz” record! (chuckles) It’s funny actually, thinking about that record and the fact that I keep on calling it my “Jazz” album, which is something that Dave O’Higgins (saxophonist and composer), who played tenor and baritone saxophone on that album, also did.”
In 2018, Basia released her album Butterflies, which, along with its more intimate songs, boasts an even jazzier sound on most of the tracks than her previous efforts. On “Be.Pop” the brass section swings as her lyrics address the issue of how her music should (or should not be) be labeled, and the unsolicited advice she has received on the matter.
“Why don’t you stick to one style
You’ll never be played on the radio
Singles rule our times
Blah, blah
Give people what they want
But don’t do this
Don’t do that’
But I’m disobedient
So I’ve got to
Say what I want to
I want to play ’cause I want to, I want to
Be Rap, be Jazz, be Soul, be Jive
Always in and out of fashion
Resting on the shelf…”
Corinne Drewery, discussing Swing Out Sister, echoed the sentiment. “I think that’s all we ever intended to do — not to fit in with any particular fads or trends at any particular time, but just to encapsulate good things from the past and the present — just to create something that can be enjoyed at any time. We’re probably too contrary to fit in with any current trends, and if anything, we’d probably try to fight against them…”
Here’s “Be.Pop” in its entirety:
Another song on the album, the rumba flavored “Show Time,” brings back Mark Reilly as co-writer and guest soloist.
The flow of major new releases from Basia, Matt Bianco, and Swing Out Sister began to slow considerably even before the pandemic of 2020-’21. And, as it is with the rest of life, the future remains unclear. But it is virtually impossible to imagine it without their music. Fingers crossed that we’ll hear more from all of these gifted and talented musicians before much longer.
Until next time…
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