Aly Berry Released A Matter So Small

The following feature is now included in our online magazine which is also available in print.

Issue #5

London's jazz evenings have a knack for unearthing voices that are simultaneously timeless and fresh. In the soft darkness of a Mayfair club, one such voice started turning heads — smoky, smooth, and coolly self-assured. That is Aly Berry, a British singer-songwriter with a jazz-influenced sound whose presence is like a tip of the head towards old-school glamour in contemporary contexts. Her new single, A Matter So Small, is the third from her imminent debut album, and it's a comfortable introduction to her world: equal measures of romance and introspection, all wrapped in late-night velvet.

From the North of England originally, Aly made the leap that would be her tale. At eighteen, she departed home to London — youthful, driven, and set to make her mark upon two dynamic worlds: music and modeling. She had previously been modeling since a teenager, but the city's creative vibrancy welcomed her on a deeper level. London's jazz scene, with all its grime and glory, was her school room and playground.

It was where she had her initial encounter with Paul Higgs, an old-time jazz composer and trumpet player with a moviemaking sensibility and intimate familiarity with timeless form. What began as an informal working relationship became a mutually understood language artistically. With him, she started composing and performing, blending her sultry vocals with his rich arrangements. The collaboration became a legitimate recording business — a debut album that sounds like a dialogue between eras, fusing mid-century sophistication from jazz with the integrity of contemporary singer-songwriters. And the titles of the players indicate just how much respect this album commands. Scott Hamilton, if not one of the finest working saxophonists in contemporary jazz today; Dave Green, a bass player with a resume running across decades; Neil Bullock on drums, rhythm genius; and Paul Higgs himself, setting the direction aurally. This isn't an oldies band. This is a collection of players who know feel, and how to tell imitation from magic.


It's subtle, the sort of song where room and silence help to tell part of the story. Aly's voice never insists on being heard above the mix; she yields, she invites, she offers things to think about. There's subtle confidence in her phrasing, you can tell she has listened to the masters, but she's not attempting to copy. Where Norah Jones had served coffeehouse introspection and Amy Winehouse brought back smoky defiance, Aly Berry seems the singer who could walk the middle ground between them, marrying intimacy and sheen in her own way. Where jazz is typically stuck in amber or subjected to fusion experimentation, Aly's is the refreshing common-sense approach. She is not trendy. Her voice takes on the heavy grain of an analog record in a dark room, but with a burst of lucidity that's unmistakably modern. Picture the mournful elegance of Chet Baker Sings remade in the soundtrack-sounding timbres of Vesper by Massive Attack, tempered but deeply affecting.