Thin pickings so far this year in terms of top jazz vocals albums and now thankfully this. I haven't heard a Dena DeRose album in years worse luck and the singer-pianist does not disappoint here. And yet this record, shaped round a core trio, is very out of place, it's classic jazz, so American, but does not sit easily in much jazz issued in 2020. Yet some things do not go out of fashion. Hipster, swinging, slightly cynical, worldly wise, a very sophisticated jazz club kind of record and yet all the clubs are shut. The irony suits.
Any album that includes a version of Fran Landesman and Bob Dorough's 'Small Day Tomorrow' and lands in Mark Murphy territory which is does on the title track has a lot going for it. Guests include Jeremy Pelt in a more mainstream guise than you usually find him; it doesn't matter, he hits the bull's eye yet again even when he is playing more like Sweets Edison which he does a bit here. Out on HighNote soon. Hearing this makes me wants to be in a jazz club immediately. Is that so wrong?
Dena DeRose, top. Photo: press shot.
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