BARBARA MOORE – BRIGHT AND SHINING.

dereksmusicblog ♦ November 11, 2026 ♦ Leave a comment

Barbara Moore – Bright and Shining.

Label: Be With Records.

Format: Vinyl. 

Originally released in 1981 on the Sylvester Music Company label, Barbara Moore’s ‘Bright and Shining’ stands as a masterclass in British library music. As a gifted composer, arranger, and vocalist whose career spanned collaborations with everyone from Johnny Dankworth to Dusty Springfield, Moore imbued her library compositions with an exceptional degree of compositional depth and emotional warmth. 

Long treasured as an elusive holy grail among crate-diggers and collectors, ‘Bright and Shining’ marries sophisticated jazz-funk grooves, breezy pastoral pop, and her signature wordless vocal arrangements. 

Side A.

‘Bright and Shining’ opens the album with an immediate sense of optimism and aerodynamic grace. Driven by pristine instrumentation and glossy arrangement choices, it sets the stylistic tone for the entire project – effortlessly balancing functional media utility with high-art composition.

‘Fly Me High’ is a sun-drenched, pastoral highlight. The track leans heavily into breezy electric guitars and smooth alto saxophone lines, anchored by Moore’s trademark unworded vocal harmonies floating gracefully behind the central melody with occasional refrains of the track’s title.

Shifting the mood into something more contemplative, ‘Affluence’ offers a slow, sultry, and sophisticated aesthetic. Its moody elegance showcases Moore’s mastery of atmosphere, functioning as a rich, cinematic piece that avoids pastiche in favour of genuine late-night introspection. 

True to its title, ‘Going On Holiday’ radiates an unforced, buoyant euphoria. It is an irresistibly lively and sunny excursion, featuring crisp percussion and cheerful melodic turns that evoke mid-century optimism without ever feeling dated.

‘Alto Sax’ is a mid-tempo romantic workout that introduces a distinct jazz-funk undercurrent. The saxophone takes centre-stage, wrapping around a plush rhythm section with a suave, late-seventies and early-eighties television cue sensibility. 

Side A closes with ‘Stay With Me’ a soaring, deeply uplifting note. Lush string-like pads and rich vocal textures intertwine with confident jazz phrasing, creating a romantic and expansive wall of sound.

Side B.

Opening the second half, ‘Feel Fine’ injects a brisk, bright uptempo energy back into the track-list. Its tight, driving jazz groove is propelled by nimble rhythm section work and sparkling melodic accents. 

Demonstrating Moore’s classical background, ‘Canon’ highlights her sophisticated grasp of counterpoint and harmonic structure. It acts as a subtle structural pivot on the record, layering lines with precision and pristine balance. 

True to its descriptive name, ‘Smooth and Soft’ drifts past on a pillow of gentle dynamics and understated textures. The pacing is unhurried and meditative, allowing individual instrumental timbres – from soft electric keys to breathy wind elements – to bloom and fade gracefully. It offers a moment of profound tranquility within the broader track-list. 

‘Real Thing’ is a more grounded, rhythmic excursion that leans deeper into the soulful, funk-adjacent side of the library spectrum. It features tighter interplay between the electric bass and keyboard vamp, providing a subtle, head-nodding cadence that highlights the rhythm section’s impeccable pocket. It is among the funkiest and most rhythmically compelling cuts on the album.

‘Voice Over Sax’ is a playful and clever nod to the functional nature of production music, this track merges conversational, emotive saxophone phrasing with airy, wordless vocal touches. It bridges the gap between commercial broadcast utility and inspired modern jazz arrangement, proving that functional music could possess immense artistic personality. 

The album concludes with ‘Feeling Free, ’a liberating, open-air composition that encapsulates the very essence of Moore’s compositional ethos. Marked by melodic freedom, immaculate execution, and an enduring sense of unpretentious joy, it leaves a lasting, resonant impression, cementing the record’s status as a masterclass in mood and arrangement. 

In retrospect, ‘Bright and Shining’ achieves something far more profound than the standard conventions of late-seventies and early-eighties production music allowed. Library music was historically conceived as utilitarian background scoring – disposable, anonymous sonic wallpaper designed to sit quietly beneath television broadcasts, documentaries, and corporate films without drawing focus to itself. Yet, through Barbara Moore’s uncompromising artistic vision and meticulous ear for arrangement, this record completely shatters those invisible boundaries. Instead of a disparate collection of functional cues, Moore moulded the sessions into an utterly cohesive, deeply personal auteur-driven statement that hums with genuine creative agency and emotional weight.

The triumph of the album lies in its miraculous alchemy of disparate musical vocabularies. Moore effortlessly fuses the rigorous counterpoint and harmonic sophistication of her classical training with the earthy, propulsive pocket of contemporary jazz-funk, all while layering her signature celestial, wordless vocal harmonies across the arrangements.This synthesis prevents the music from ever falling into pastiche or sounding dated. Where lesser library records relied on predictable tropes of their decade, Moore constructed a lush, self-contained sonic universe that feels suspended in time – evoking a warm, sun-bleached mid-century nostalgia while remaining startlingly modern in its production sheen and structural elegance.

Consequently, the enduring legacy of ‘Bright and Shining’ extends well beyond its status as an elusive, holy-grail collector’s item traded quietly among elite crate-diggers, or its appeal as a goldmine of pristine breaks for sample-hungry hip-hop producers. Those modern revivals, while well-deserved, only scratch the surface of the record’s true worth.Ultimately, the album stands as a towering, brilliant monument to Barbara Moore’s singular genius—cementing her legacy not merely as a gifted hired hand of the British broadcasting industry, but as a visionary musical architect, a fearless arranger, and a composer of immense, uncompromised artistic stature.

Barbara Moore – Bright and Shining.