OPEN POST: Manor Music Monday With Aya & Monique & Catherine & More!

Greetings, music hors, and welcome to another edition of Music Manor Monday. Hold tight as we skip-to-me-lou to the recent past, or the early 2000s, a time where you could whiz-bang down the street on Razor Scooters, sashay around in Heeleys, and blast irritating songs like "Hey Ya" by OutKast if you really wanted to work my last nerve. "Fo shizzle my nizzle," as the kids said back then.

Right about that time, "nu jazz" - which blended jazz, funk, soul and electronica - reached an amazing creative peak. The heyday didn't last long, since the continued rise of Hip-Hop all but obliterated mainstream niche genres. It's a shame. There was an intelligence at work with nu jazz, which often took existing standards and souped them up to sometimes sublime effect. The long-running Saint Germaine series is a good example of this, where jazz tunes from the 1930s and 40s was reinvented, electro-jazz-style, "for the new millennium." Yet at its very best, nu jazz created fresh, wholly original material that's still very much worth listening to. 

For me, nu jazz at its finest remains Blue Six's classic (and I'm not using that term loosely) "Beautiful Tomorrow," a mesmerizing downtempo collection from 2002 of original nu jazz tunes, all of them masterminded by Deep House producer/songwriter Jay Denes, along with a group of dreamy-sounding female vocalists, including Monique Bingham and Catherine Russell, who perform on two of the album's most celebrated tracks, "Close To Home" and "Music And Wine." It's pure gorgeousness.

"Beautiful Tomorrow" got me to thinking. Who were the uncredited singers of Blue Six? A few of them I knew, but some, like Lysa "Aya" Trenier (pictured below), I hadn't heard of before.

Not surprisingly, this British-born singer and actress collaborated countless times with Jay Denes and his Naked Music label. A member of the Sade-produced band Sweetback, she also played a supporting role in "Loving Jezebel" (a movie I haven't seen, but which sounds like fun). In 2004, based on the success of "Blue Six," Naked Music released Aya's solo effort. It's in the same vein as "Beautiful Tomorrow," which means it's just as creamy-delicious, while Aya's voice, which is barely above a whispered murmur, is just right.

As for Monique Bingham, the vocalist on "Close To Home," no party is complete without her.

Why Monique hasn't yet done a full solo album is a great mystery. Over the last few decades, though, she's been the diva to call for producers of sleek, soulful jazz-dance tunes, her resume of collaborators reading like a Who's Who of House Music's best, like Blue Six, Abstract Truth, Ralph Gum, Okada Taxi. And, yes, she's just as good live, in case you were wondering:

If you're familiar with any of the vocalists on "Beautiful Tomorrow," it's probably renown chanteuse Catherine Russell.

You'll absolutely j'adore "Strictly Romancin'" her stylish collection of jazz standards (and Catherine's best album, I think). She's the real deal: a modern jazz vocalist with a crystalline voice who can run the entire gamut from traditional to cutting edge. I guess we shouldn't be surprised that she's the daughter of Louis Armstrong's long-time musical director, or that her mother was a pioneering female jazz vocalist. How's that for lineage? Just listen to her on the track "Romance In The Dark" below and you'll be captivated, I promise. You can listen to her complete album RIGHT HERE.

What are you listening to this week? DJ Li'l Scratch wants to know.
Till next time...purr, bitches, purr! 🐾

Photo Credits: Naked Music, Astralwerks, Virgin Records, Getty Images