With the strap line of Tom Scott’s new album ‘Telling Stories’ reading as ‘Tom Scott Presents Paulette McWilliams’ one could be excused for thinking that McWilliams was new to the scene. In fact she is anything but because as far back as 1970 she was providing lead vocals to the band Ask Rufus which, by 1971 (with the addition of the then eighteen year old Chaka Khan), had morphed into the chart topping Rufus. Since then McWilliams has lent her voice to dozens of national TV ads, recorded with Quincy Jones and toured with the likes of Michael Jackson, Bette Midler, Marvin Gaye and Johnny Mathis. Now, with ‘Telling Stories’, she is stepping out as a leader, for an eclectic mix of music that is decidedly on the jazzy side.
Helped in no small measure by legendary saxophonist Tom Scott who variously serves as performer, co-producer and principal arranger, McWilliams gets the show on the road with the sultry ‘Sunday in New York’ where comparisons to the great Sarah Vaughan cannot be ignored. Elsewhere a sizzling rendition of ‘Don’t Be On The Outside’ sits in delightful contrast to the silky ‘You Fascinate Me So’ and when McWilliams partners with Bobby Caldwell for ‘You Go to My Head’ they spread their collective magic far and wide.
Some fine guitar work by Robben Ford s characterizes the pop classic ‘Ode to Billie Joe’ and given that Scott is the undisputed master of soulfully inclined cross-over jazz it is no surprise that he finds space for the Kool & The Gang blockbuster ‘Too Hot’. Here McWilliams’ duet with Will Downing is sublime and Scott (who first covered this song on his 1990 project ‘Them Changes’) is at his superb best.