This is the first recording to combine British singer Sara Dowling, now based in Castellón (Spain), with pianist Bruce Barth, based in New York, bassist Dario Di Lecce and drummer Stephen Keogh. The singer and the pianist are inspired and get along wonderfully.
The emotional heart of the album is the title track, "At Sundown Time". It is the first time in Bruce Barth's long career that he appears on an album as a lyricist. Barth had long thought about putting words to it, but as he notes with her typical generosity of spirit, "It was Sara's encouragement that gave me the push to perfect and record it."
The album not only possesses a powerful range of emotions, but also amazing musicality. The piano solo on Barth's other song, "Softly, as in a Garden Path," is a masterclass from the trio in maintaining a constant tension between double and triple beat. And the Arlen/Mercer song "Out of this World" has amazing metrical freedom. What Dowling does in her choral solo could be called scatting, but it's really more of a passionate instrumental solo with searing intensity.
Another miracle of the recording, magnificently captured by the engineer Alberto Sales, is that it was done "like live" in an empty concert hall with no separation. This excellent group has comfortably taken on that challenge and the result is a very special album.
(Sebastian Scotney, London Jazz News)