Album Notes

John Taylor of ejazznews.com says,
"...Darling tackles Tin Pan Alley with guileless innocence. At a time when some of these chestnuts are occasionally given a little too much reverence, Darling's take is refreshing. He's given a lot of thought to the arrangements, and the instrumental accompaniment is both intelligent and appealing, challenging yet lushly romantic at the same time. " AND "....And jazz standards are nothing if not declarations of love...... Colin Darling seems to understand that, and favours a warm, tender approach to this collection of standards augmented by a couple of surprises."

Colin Darling started as a classical singer. Voice teachers sometimes thought he was lazy, but, really , he just couldn't relate to the structure of the classics. He was most happy with a beer in hand on stage singing, jamming with jazz, blues, and R&B bands. Getting off the stage after jamming with friend Tony "Wild T" Springer a friend asked the question that prompted the title of his debut CD release.... "What the hell are you doing?".... what?, .... " Why Aren't You Doing This?" .

The next day his jazz career began with a call to a drummer friend (Steve Foster) who assembled a trio of himself, Alan Kingstone on guitar, and Chris Udell on bass. Colin's first jazz performance occurred a month later to rave reviews and the new genred career was born!

It's difficult to compare Colin's singing style with others, however, his jazz influences include Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Joe Williams,Mel Torme, Johnny Hartman, and Ray Charles. His musical influences range from Stefan Grappelli to The Clash, from Gabriel Faure to George Thorogood.

The debut CD draws from all these influences to produce a collection of some of Colin's favourite songs from the standard and not so standard repertoire. Friends are asking for a live recording now. It's in the works!

The players on the CD are:

Eric Boucher - piano
Laila Biali - piano (Multiple National Jazz Award Winner. Currently touring with Cris Botti. www.lailabiali.com )
Alan Kingstone - guitar (Alan just wrote a guitar method book that has been adopted by the Berkeley School of Music-The Barris Harris Harmonic Method for Guitar)
Chris Udell - bass
Steve Foster - drums