A deep admirer of Duke Ellington, Roy Hargrove, and fellow Australian brass player Shannon Barnett, among other jazz figures spanning multiple generations and approaches, Audrey Powne is known primarily as a trumpeter and vocalist. She has played with the likes of Maceo Parker, the Teskey Brothers, Jimmy Barnes, and Midnight Oil, and has been part of the disparate Melbourne R&B acts Leisure Centre and Au Dre. In 2018, while active with the latter two, Powne showed another side with her first solo single, "Flowers" -- lively chamber pop-soul outfitted with strings including harp. Next came an appearance on the Brownswood Recordings compilation Sunny Side Up, and then the 2020 release of Bed I Made, a spacey EP that swung between vocal and more jazz-rooted instrumental compositions. After a hazier-yet single in 2022, Powne signed with the BBE label and made this, her first solo album. Its in line with the earlier solo output, though theres increased clarity and definition to the material, recalling the most elegant moments of Hargroves RH Factor (such as "Poetry" and "Juicy") and postmillennial U.K. paeans to Charles Stepney and Richard Evans (4heros cover of Minnie Ripertons "Les Fleurs," Fatimas "Do Better," virtually any Inflo production with strings). From the Fire is certainly a new pinnacle for the musician, who not only sings and plays her main instrument but also handles piano, organ, and Fender Rhodes, and wrote, arranged, and produced the album in its entirety. Beginning with a steady, sweeping overture and finishing with a burning ballad, the record is constructed for continuous play. "Feed the Fire" and "From the Fire," respectively the second and penultimate tracks, are immediate standouts. The confrontational former has a cinematic quality with tense bass and drums and a spiraling mass of strings with which Pownes voice escalates in the chorus. The contrasting title song is a breezy ballad about regeneration where cascading electric keys give way to gleaming trumpet. Most of what transpires in between is balladic in nature and moves from the bedroom (the wispy "Sleep") to the church ("Indigo"). The piece with the most heat might actually be the closing "Souled Out," something of a distant cousin to Donald Byrds version of Duke Pearsons "Cristo Redentor" with Matt Keegans storming baritone sax showcased instead of trumpet. ~ Andy Kellman

Rovi