Georgia Mancio and Alan Broadbent: Songbook review – uplifting

It’s rare to find a songwriting and performing partnership so well matched, yet this is the first album of their joint compositions. Alan Broadbent’s lucid melodies and Georgia Mancio’s delicately evocative lyrics already have that inseparable feeling. There’s a quiet elegance, too, in the blend of her voice and his piano, not singer and accompanist so much as the mutual expression of the same idea. A mildly sad, autumnal air drifts through most of these 11 pieces, but the performances (including the work of bassist Andrew Cleyndert and drummer Dave Ohm) are so firm, the harmonies so delicious and Mancio’s instinct for poignant detail so exact, that the result is quite uplifting.