The latest releases from three vocalists with quite different backgrounds—Doug Wamble, Cheryl Richards, and Roxana Amed—offer satisfying musical explorations.

Doug Wamble
Blues in the Present Tense (Halcyonic Records)
A review
“Blues is what cause the fellows to start jazzing,” said the early New Orleans clarinetist “Big Eye” Louis Nelson. You might say the same of singer/songwriter/guitarist Doug Wamble, who latest release, Blues in the Present Tense, delivers stunning jazz on a blues foundation. He’s assisted by the “elusive” (according to the press release) and pseudonymous Prometheus Jenkins (sax), Eric Revis (bass), and Jeff “Tain” Watts (drums). On most of the album’s eight original tracks, Wamble investigates and excoriates the arrogance, avarice, deceit, self-righteousness, willful ignorance, and lack of compassion infecting a distressingly large swath of the American population. He does offer solace and encouragement “Along the Way.” The four gentlemen deliver breathtaking blues-rooted jazz on every track, inoculating the listener against the viral insanity that threatens the American experiment.

Cheryl Richards
Another Spring (New Artist Records)
A review
It took me a minute to accommodate myself to Cheryl Richards’ voice on her new release, Another Spring. There was something fragile and antique about it, and I initially wondered if I would listen to the entire album. Eleven tracks and 50-some minutes later, I knew I wanted to hear it again. With an almost girlish and vulnerably direct delivery, Richards takes on the time-worn American songbook and finds a fresh and distinctive take on every track, with the intrepid assistance of Nick Lyons (alto saxophone), Adam Caine (guitar), Adam Lane (bass), and Vijay Anderson (drums), in various combinations. Of course, you’d expect a distinctive take from any musician who’s studied with pianist Connie Crothers for 15 years. Check out her duet with Lane on “Nature Boy,” with the bassist cast as the boy himself; her wordless unison vocalizing on long, complex lines with Lyons on “All about You/How about You” and with Caine on Charlie Parker’s “Cheryl;” her engagement with Lyons on “The Song Is Ended (but the Melody Lingers On).” Take note of her tonal gradations and rhythmic displacements and how elastic a very familiar melody can be, and you’ll want to take another spin, too.

Roxana Amed
Unánime (Sony Music | Latin)
A review
Argentine native Roxana Amed possesses a remarkable vocal instrument, sensual and intimate, with exceptionally wide tonal and timbral ranges, and she exercises complete command over that voice to deliver microtonally tailored expressions of finely calibrated feeling. In other words, she’s an artist who sings her ass off. On her latest, beautifully produced (by her) release, Unánime, follow-up to her award-winning 2021 album Ontology, she employs that instrument to explore the many variations of Latin jazz. She calls on material from some of Latin America’s great composers—such as Ignacio Cervantes (Cuba), Luis Alberto Spinetta (Argentina), and Egberto Gismonti (Brazil), among others—and on several well-respected artists from Latin America and Spain, including pianist Chucho Valdes (Cuba), guitarist Niño Josele (Spain), guitarist Chico Pinheiro (Brazil), composer/pianist Julio Reyes Copello (Colombia), vocalist/trumpeter Linda Briceño (Venezuela), and more. Highlights include a wordless orgasmic take on Miles Davis’s “Flamenco Sketches,” complete with afterglow; a stunning wordless duet with Copello on his “Duo Concertante,” and la pieza de resistencia, Cervantes’ “Adiós a Cuba,” which made me homesick for a place I’ve never visited. Amed’s exceptional band includes Martin Bejerano (piano), Mark Small (saxes and clarinet), Tim Jago (electric guitar), Edward Perez (double bass), and Ludwig Afonso (drums). An artist at the height of her creativity, Amed has delivered a stunning work of multiethnic jazz that has been inserted into the rotation here, where it will likely remain for some time.

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© 2022 Mel Minter