A tasty morsel out of the box

As per Forrest Gump, “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you will get.” I can say the same thing about CDs. You get one and you will never know what you’ve got until after you have listened to it. And again, just like a box of chocolates, you sometimes get a taste of heaven in a strange confection. This was what I found in the album Deleted Scenes From The Cutting Room Floor by Caro Emerald.

The CD has been on my desk for weeks now begging for attention. But then Mumford & Sons and Destiny’s Child seemed more attractive to our readers. Besides, I did not know what to make of the title. Is the album made up of movie music edited out of the final cut? Who would want those? Who is Caro Emerald? A ballroom band? That is not the most promising of prospects. So the album stayed there, waiting.

Then while in the process of tidying up my desk, I decided to put it in the player. And what do you know, Deleted Scenes From The Cutting Room Floor turned out to be the tastiest morsel out of the box. It is so richly flavored but at the same time so light that it brings a lilt to the step of the listener. Do you want to feel jaunty? Listen to this. Are you dreaming of driving around with the wind on your face and beautiful scenery all around. You will get that feel if you have this sound playing in the car.

So what indeed is Deleted Scenes From The Cutting Room Floor and who is Caro Emerald? First off, I admire the daring of whoever made that decision on the album title as this must be one of the longest and most misleading, I have ever come across. Then it is classified as a jazz album from Holland, but is really so much more. I hear jazz, part Latin, part old-time swing from the ’40s and ’50s, part easy-listening ballads but all laid on a hip-hop bed. Very clever.

Then thanks to Wikipedia, I now have an idea of who the singer Caro Emerald is. She is actually the beautiful and talented Caroline Esmeralda van der Leeuw, who is Dutch and is one of the most exciting things to happen in modern jazz music. She graduated from the Amsterdam Conservatory of Music and had begun her career by singing demos for other artists. She hit the jackpot when she was asked to do, Back It Up, produced by Jan van Wieringen and composed by David Schrews and Vince Degiorgio.

Unable to find an artist who could do a better version of the demo, the song was released in 2009 with Caro as the artist and it became a huge hit. It was in the Dutch charts longer than Michael Jackson’s Thriller and made No. 1 in several countries in Europe. Caro Emerald has since then become a big star. She was named Best Dutch and Belgian Act at the MTV-EMA, Best Female Artist at the Edison Awards and Best Dutch Pop Act at the Popprijs among other honors.

As for the unique title, I believe that Deleted Scenes From The Cutting Room Floor came to be called that because the songs do sound like musical numbers from old movies. You hear a cut and you think of Gene Kelly coming in to dance with Cyd Charisse with bandleader like Xavier Cugat setting the beat with a girl singer who has hints of the sweet sounds of Sarah and Billie and Ella. This is truly a very novel and interesting concept for an album.

I see novel, indeed, as the best word to describe Caro Emerald’s music. It is novel in the sense that it does not hew to stereotypes or music categories. In a way, the album is very similar to today’s pop sounds that defy convention. You can call We Are Young by fun, rock but it is still different. What about Somebody That I Used To Know by Gotye or Lonely Boy by the Black Keys or even Olly Murs’ Army Of Two? These hits make me think that if an artist wants to make it big nowadays, he has to be fearlessly original and fun. Just like Caro Emerald.