Show Description
"After listening to a continuous stream of releases by purported rising jazz singers - who couldn't have lasted through a chorus in a contest with Ella Fitzgerald or Betty Carter - it's a delight to hear the real thing in Catherine Russell... at the center of gravity that has always kept the music alive is 'the groove' that Cat Russell embodies." - Nat Hentoff, The Wall Street JournalCatherine Russell is that rarest of entities -- an honest-to-goodness, genuine jazz singer. In a field where any vocalist who attempts the classic canon is granted that sobriquet as a matter of course, she stands out like a diamond among rhinestones. Ms. Russell's voice is full-blown femininity incarnate, a dusky, stalwart and soulful instrument that radiates interpretive power yet remains touchingly vulnerable. In her new release, Sentimental Streak (World Village/Harmonia Mundi, Russell and her swinging band -- Mark Shane(piano), Lee Hudson (bass), and Matt Munisteri (guitar, banjo) -- have distilled the robust, good-time essence of Southern juke joints and lindy-hopping Northern Dance Halls, where confessing the blues is every bit as good for the soul as getting frisky in the first place. The material, heard in arrangements inspired by Chick Webb, Hoagy Carmichael, Louis Armstrong, Willie Dixon, Frank Sinatra, and Ms. Russell’s own father, Luis Russell, and much of it originally associated with legends like Bessie Smith, Alberta Hunter, Nellie Lutcher, Pearl Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald, and Lena Horne, harks back to tales of lusty, big-hearted women who knew what was what and spoke out accordingly.
Catherine Russell - vocals
Matt Munisteri - guitar / banjo
Lee Hudson - bass
Mark Shane - piano
+ special guests
Howard Johnson - tuba
Steven Bernstein - trumpet
Erik Lawrence - sax
Comments on These Artists
No comments found
Post a Comment
Select an artist: