A sultry Affair Lisa Wahlandt´s and Mulo Francel´s concert at The Esplanade Dizzy with delight was how singer Lisa Wahlandt and tenor saxophonist Mulo Francel left 1.000 or so Singaporean jazz lovers at The Esplanade over the weekend. Their two-hour eclectic jam session - culminating in two standing ovations and three encores - was ostensibly a tribute to Bossa Nova pioneers Stan Getz and Astrud "The Girl From Ipanema" Gilberto. But the evening was to be much, much more than just a salute to heroes. Hailing mainly from Germany, Wahlandt, Francel and their three-man band proved to be endlessly inventive musicians, surprising the audience at every turn with novelties such as Austrian percussionist Robert Kainar´s polite quacks with a duckbill-like mouth instrument. They even threw in a few songs they had written, notably Wahlandt´s cooing lullaby "You Are A Flower and Francel´s light and whimsical ditty about a prude, titled As Everyone Knows, I´m Old-Fashioned. Their seamless and intuitive music making together created a sound very reminiscent of the British band led by jazz royalty John Dankworth and his wife Cleo Laine. What sets Wahlandt and Francel´s act apart from the all-too-big pool of Captain And Tennille-like duos today, though, is their uncanny knack of blending a God-blessed voice (hers) with the sassy, brassy toots from clarinet and saxophone (his) into lush, sublime harmonies. Poetic sensibilities in near flawless phrasing made anything Wahlandt sang like a soundtrack to a sultry afternoon spent watching boats cruise downriver, with sunlight glittering on the water... ... Singapore should be so lucky if this band returns again and again. (THE STRAITS TIMES: Singapore, April 12, 2004, by Cheong Suk-Wai)