(Reprinted from the June 2024 issue of the New York City Jazz Record. Photo: Melanie Futorian)
Brazilian vocalist Jamile Staevie Ayres gracefully shoulders the full weight of the sung poetry for composer/bandleader Mike Holober’s This Rock We’re On: Imaginary Letters (Palmetto Records). This elegant record—a suite of compositions honoring both the beauty and the fragility of the natural world—moves between full-length instrumentals for big band and compact art songs in chamber settings. Ayres appears on the latter.
These seven vocal tracks (of 17 total) derive in spirit from Samuel Barber's mid-century Hermit Songs and Edward MacDowell's 18th century parlor songs, at once dense with meaning and tricky melodies. Note how the jagged, intervallic vocal line on “Three Words For Snow” and the glancing harmonic friction between voice and piano on “Refuge” accentuate the songs’ ponderous words. Or how Ayres’ deft toggling between a rich throatiness and a lilting lyricism on “Another Summer” and “Another Summer Epilogue” suggest a cozy familiarity with the listener. It’s on “To Virginia”, though, that we hear Ayres’ contemporary understanding of song, as she adorns the minimal vocal line with jazz colorations.
The tunes featuring Ayres provide a compelling contrast with the Gotham Jazz Orchestra’s instrumental selections (the bulk of the two-disc recording)—against pieces like “Domes”, an exultant big band statement, and “Tower Pulse”, a masterful work of sleek modernism. In this juxtaposition Holober’s talents as a composer for both a large ensemble and an intimate voice cannot be underestimated: These are magnificent expositions both musically and literarily.
Each set of Holober’s lyrics—imagined dialogues between great environmental thought leaders on the state of our planet—are a gift to any singer, loaded as they are with feeling and intent. Ayres wisely resists any impulse toward brooding in their interpretation, however, instead issuing their message without any indulgence. Her delivery, clear-eyed as it is, thus stands as a challenge. Holober releases the album with a concert at City College of New York (Jun 14).
Singer/songwriter Allegra Levy, too, ponders weighty matters in her new release, Out of the Question, her fifth from SteepleChase Records. Each of the album’s 13 titles ends in a question mark as Levy takes on themes such as existential angst (“What Is This Thing Called Love?”), the depth of commitment (“What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?”) and the pain of unrequited love (“What’ll I Do?”). Levy also contributed lyrics to two instrumentals—Benny Golson’s “Are You Real?” as a swinging, scatting paean to new love, and Horace Silver’s “Que Pasa?”, an English/Spanish take on a bad romance and one of the album’s darker tunes. Levy officially releases the new record at Pangea (Jun 18).
The 10 tracks of Good People, singer Tierney Sutton’s latest LP with the large ensemble San Gabriel 7, also finds her writing lyrics—this time for the cause of social justice. The daughter of a civil rights lawyer and a member of the B’hai faith, Sutton shares her ever-deepening understanding of racial injustice on the title track, a pointed lesson in white America’s blindness toward the issue. She expounds further on “The In Between”, a soft Latin tune that urges us to question our beliefs so as to see social truths more clearly, and on “Ten”, her mournful remembrance for 10 Iranian women executed for their religious beliefs. Not all of the record is so grim, though: Sutton closes with “Wait For Me”, a gentle ballad that offers a utopian vision of more harmonious future.
A quick shout-out: Champian Fulton spearheaded Jazz At The Ballroom’s Flying High: Big Band Canaries Who Soared, a collection of 15 tunes popularized by jazz divas of yesteryear and performed by several of the best jazz vocalists today—besides Fulton, Gretje Angel, Carmen Bradford, Olivia Chindamo, Jane Monheit and Vanessa Perea. The album release shows are in California this month, but you can catch Fulton with her trio locally at the 11th Annual Jersey City Jazz Festival in Jersey City (Jun. 1).
In the rooms: Michelle Lordi will front her quartet at Mezzrow (Jun. 2), likely singing some of the fascinating tunes from her 2023 release, New Moon (Imani). The multi-talented Noa Fort takes over the hippest borough this month, visiting Ibeam Brooklyn (Jun. 2), Threes Brewing (Jun. 28) and Brooklyn Artery (Jun. 29). Lastly, international headliner Samara Joy returns to her native NYC to play Town Hall (Jun. 20-21) and NJPAC (Jun. 23).