| Jazz |
I am barely awake when I put the record on, but even in that half-conscious state, I recognize the familiar sensation: the quiet certainty that I am about to hear something rooted in history. A quick splash of Karl Lagerfeld Classic, a reflex as old as my own listening habits, and I let the opening bars settle into the room. What unfolds is not merely a jazz-funk-soul album from a Canadian duo, but a conversation with the long memory of African American music, one that understands lineage as deeply as it embraces pleasure.
Bill Sample’s career alone reads like a footnote-rich chapter in modern jazz history. His collaborations with Ray Charles and Kenny Loggins, his early appearances opening for Oscar Peterson and Monty Alexander, and his role as one of Diana Krall’s first piano teachers place him squarely within a continuum that stretches from postwar jazz through soul, funk and contemporary crossover forms. His pianism reflects that arc: harmonically informed by jazz tradition, rhythmically indebted to gospel and funk, and shaped by decades of listening rather than stylistic fashion.
Darlene Cooper, his partner on stage and in life, belongs to a parallel yet equally grounded tradition. As a vocalist, arranger and educator steeped in jazz, soul and gospel, she carries forward a lineage defined not by vocal acrobatics but by narrative clarity and emotional truth. Her collaborations with Eric Bibb, Dee Daniels, Marcus Mosely and Leon Bibb situate her within a vocal genealogy that privileges storytelling, phrasing and collective memory over individual display. In a field crowded with stylistic homage, Cooper’s voice stands out for its refusal to mimic; it asserts continuity through authenticity.
The album announces itself with a formal gesture that feels almost historical in its own right: a carefully constructed instrumental introduction, recalling the overtures that once framed classic albums by Ray Charles, Nat King Cole or even Elvis Presley in his more orchestral moments. This deliberate pacing is not accidental. It reasserts an older understanding of the album as a unified work, one that unfolds in time rather than catering to the immediacy of the single.
When Cooper finally enters on the second track, the effect is cumulative. Her voice does not arrive as a star turn but as a narrative presence, engaging rhythm and melody with an ease that recalls the great jazz vocalists who understood swing as a form of speech. There is an intelligence here in the way she bends phrases, negotiates syncopation and allows silence to function as meaning.
Formed in 2017, Wild Blue Herons have steadily built their reputation across Canada’s principal festivals and clubs, from the Vancouver Folk Festival to Toronto’s Jazz Bistro. Their earlier recordings already hinted at this historical awareness. On the Outside, their funk-driven debut with a full band, drew openly from 1970s groove aesthetics, while You and I, recorded during the lockdown period, embraced intimacy and restraint in the tradition of small-group jazz and soul confessionals. Together, these projects revealed a partnership attuned to both expansion and reduction, an essential dialectic in jazz history.
That dialectic lies at the heart of this album. Though rhythmically buoyant and often dance-oriented, the music functions as a sustained meditation on love, understood not sentimentally, but as a social and musical principle. Jazz has long treated love in this way, from the blues-inflected ballads of the swing era to the soul-jazz recordings of the 1960s, where groove became a vehicle for collective affirmation. This album situates itself squarely within that tradition.
With It’s All About Love, Sample and Cooper expand their sonic vocabulary while reaffirming their historical anchors. The addition of a full horn section in 2023 marked a decisive stylistic shift toward a groove-centered approach reminiscent of The Crusaders, early fusion-era Blue Note recordings and the polished sophistication of Steely Dan. Yet the arrangements remain unmistakably jazz-informed: harmonically layered, rhythmically elastic and attentive to ensemble balance. Sample’s writing demonstrates a mature understanding of orchestration, allowing brass, rhythm section and voice to function as interdependent narratives.
The album moves fluidly between jazz swing, funk-based grooves and soul balladry, unified by recurring themes of gratitude, presence and emotional continuity. These are not incidental motifs, but core values within jazz culture itself, a music historically shaped by resilience, memory and communal expression.
By the final tracks, I am fully awake, aware that this is one of those recordings that quietly reaffirms why jazz continues to matter. For a jazz journalist, and for any serious listener, this is not merely a pleasure album, though it certainly offers pleasure in abundance. It is a work of craft, history and shared experience. The musicianship throughout is exemplary, the mix finely balanced, and the sound both contemporary and rooted.
That the album was recorded with long-time collaborators whose résumés include work with Van Morrison, Tom Cochrane and k.d. lang only reinforces its credibility. These are musicians fluent in the language of ensemble, in the ethics of listening and in the discipline of serving the music.
Some albums invite casual enjoyment. Others demand scholarly attention. The rare ones, this among them, manage to bridge both worlds, reminding us that jazz, at its best, is not a museum piece but a living, evolving conversation. One that, even early in the morning, still has much to say.
Thierry De Clemensat
Member at Jazz Journalists Association
USA correspondent for Paris-Move and ABS magazine
Editor in chief – Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, January 7th 2026
Follow PARIS-MOVE on X
::::::::::::::::::::::::
Musicians :
Darlene Cooper | Lead Vocals, Backing Vocals
Bill Sample | Piano, Hammond, Rhodes, Backing Vocals
Tim Porter | Guitar
Miles Foxx Hill | Bass
Randall Stoll | Drums
Steve Hiliam | Tenor Sax
Jim Hopson | Trombone
Guests :
Tom Keenlyside | Flute (Track 6)
Dawn Pemberton | Guest Lead Vocal (Track 4), Backing Vocals
Jane Mortifee | Backing Vocals
Track Listing:
Mr Wiggly
Live in the Moment
Under My Skin
Whatcha Gonna Do With Your Life
It’s All About Love
Easy As Pie
Someday
Won’t Let You Steal
Bebop
Don’t Want This Heart
You Are My Sunshine
There Will Be Joy
Honey B