Black Coffee with Lils Mackintosh

The analog master tape was transferred directly to DSD 128, with no editing or mixing. This flat transfer preserves the original tape as transparently as possible.

Lils Mackintosh was one of the most distinguished voices the Dutch jazz scene has produced: a jazz and blues singer whose career brought her alongside Oscar Peterson, B.B. King, Scott Hamilton, Rita Reys, Georgie Fame, Madeline Bell, Hans and Candy Dulfer, Louis van Dijk, Cor Bakker, The Beets Brothers, the Rosenberg Trio and the Dutch Swing College Band. Though she is no longer with us, her music endures, and Black Coffee shows her at her finest.

When her debut, A Tribute to Billie Holiday, appeared in the spring of 1993, fans knew a follow-up would come. It arrived in the autumn of 1994, and once again Mackintosh revealed an artist of real style, whose feeling, flexibility and swing recall the great vocalists Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. Her diction is sensitive, her timbre unmistakably smoky, and her sense of time remarkably refined. Across thirteen carefully chosen songs, she draws on a palette of vocal colour that seems almost limitless.

Alongside the standards, Mackintosh makes room for striking new material: Jack van Poll's "People Will Try Again," Gerrit Vennema's "Ugly Old Town," and two of her own songs, "Isn't It Odd" and "Dear Dream." Van Poll's piece won her over the moment he played it for her in Antwerp, and she counted it an honour to work with this adventurous, commanding pianist. "Ugly Old Town" captured her feelings for Cologne, while "Dear Dream" looks back on a lonely period in Nigeria. "Isn't It Odd," a fan favourite, earned its place through the many requests it drew at her gigs.

The album was recorded in just three days in August 1994 at Studio 88, without a single rehearsal. Listening back, Mackintosh felt she had surpassed herself, and she was quick to credit her musicians. Guitarist Cris Monen swings lightly and makes his debut here on harmonica. Erik Roobaar's bass drives the music forward. Frits Landesbergen shines as both drummer and inventive vibraphonist, and saxophonist Allard Buwalda ranks among Europe's finest. Two celebrated guests complete the lineup: piano virtuoso Jack van Poll, and Rein van den Broek, whose sonorous flugelhorn adds a special glow to "No More Blues."

Offstage, Mackintosh was timid and sometimes unsure of herself, a woman whose life had not been easy. Onstage, she was something else entirely: forthright, fearless and wholly absorbed in her music. Black Coffee captures that second woman in full voice.

Lils Mackintosh, vocals
Cris Monen, guitar and harmonica
Erik Roobaar, bass
Frits Landesbergen, drums and vibraphone
Allard Buwalda, saxophone
With the participation of Jack van Poll, piano, and Rein van den Broek, flugelhorn