Year: 2009
Record Label: Laughing Horse Records
Style: Jazz Vocals
Review: New York City-based vocalist and master improviser, Lisa Sokolov elevates jazz and pop standards to newer realms on her fifth solo outing. With these duo, trio and quartet frameworks, amid her solo vocal and piano performances, the artist’s multidimensional mode of execution combines off-center slants, traditional crooning and avant-garde propensities.
Sokolov spins “My One And Only Love,” into a bluesy, wily and emotive forum via abstract expressionism, augmented by her subtle piano phrasings. Here and throughout, she appears to be edgy, and playful while displaying an air of innocence among other real-life aspects.
The vocalist seemingly has a dialogue with the Ol Man on “Ol Man River, where her animated and intimately devised lyricism is offset by theatrical musings and elongated verse. In addition, her ethereal piano treatment and sinuous scat maneuvers cast a dreamlike backdrop. Then on various works, featuring violinist Todd Reynolds, electric bassist Kermit Driscoll and others, she varies the current and pitch.
Drummer Gerry Hemingway’s rolling tom patterns and accenting cymbal hits, help up the ante on Sokolov’s ostinato piano centered and mesmeric original composition titled “She Is Standing.” And she goes it alone sans any musical accompaniment with the inward-looking and album finale “A Quiet Thing.”
In sum, the artist fuses quaint song-forms with finesse, strength, and impeccable execution, colored with ingenious stylizations. She detours off the roads frequently travelled once again, and pursues a deeply personalized mosaic of sound that outputs a notion of musical supremacy.
Tracks: My One And Only Love, Succotash, You Go To My Head, You're All I Need To Get By, Lush Life, Kol Nidre, Ol' Man River, Dream Haiku, She Is Standing, El Silencio, Walk In Beauty, A Quiet Thing.
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