Basia Trzetrzelewska might still be best remembered here for a brief spell of fame with jazz pop outfit Matt Bianco, but her career stretches back into the 70s in her Polish homeland, where she’d sung in bands as diverse as Alibabki – an all-girl vocal ensemble – and an early version of rockers Perfect, though not recording with either.
Perhaps neither were the ideal place for her beautifully smooth tones, though her vocals on Matt Bianco tracks, secondary to Mark Reilly’s, hinted at what she could deliver, so that when she and long-time partner Danny White split from Reilly, the class that oozed out of the first album under the Basia by-line, Time And Tide, was hardly a surprise, welcome though it was.
She’s not exactly been prolific since then, with The Sweetest Illusion originally appearing in 1994 as her third and, for many years, final studio album, a slow burner in sales terms, as elegant as Time And Tide but without her debut album’s more catchy, hooky numbers even while possessing an appealingly sophisticated transatlantic jazz swing.
This comprehensive reissue, handsomely folding-out into its three-disc package, will be overstated for all but the most dedicated, containing a morass of instrumental versions and radio edits, though it also collects a handful of more essential additional songs recorded for a Best Of retrospective.
