If you are unfamiliar with vocalist Catherine Russell, do yourself a big favor and check out her latest release, Send for Me, available here. If you are familiar with her, you have probably stopped reading by now and are on your way to to pick up this stellar release, if you haven’t already.
For me, Catherine Russell is the Hank Jones of vocalists. Like the late pianist, she carries the entire history of jazz and blues in every phrase she delivers—from New Orleans to Muscle Shoals, from the Brill Building to Harlem. It’s the canvas for her vocal paints and brushes. Like Jones, her every line moves with an understated elegance and a heart-lifting swing to tell a story—the whole story. Her latest album, Alone Together, gives us a singer at the top of her game, backed by a terrific band perfectly matched to her intentions.
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The title of the latest from Omar Sosa and Paolo Fresu is Eros, and that god accompanies Catherine Russell through her latest release, Harlem on My Mind. Continue reading
Catherine Russell, Bring It Back (Jazz
Village/harmonia mundi)
A Review
Vocalist Catherine Russell has more than 100 years of American musical history in her voice, and she comes by it honestly. Her
father, Luis Russell, was Louis Armstrong’s bandleader and arranger from 1935 through the early forties, and her mother, Carline Ray, played guitar in the International Sweethearts of Rhythm. As modern as Russell is—after all, she’s backed up everyone from Steely Dan to David Bowie to Rosanne Cash for years—when she sings in front of her band, it’s a history lesson, and never was school so much fun. Continue reading
The New Mexico Jazz Festival begins this week, offering 16 days of concerts, photos, film, and more in both Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll focus on a few of the featured artists that will be rearranging time and space for your listening pleasure and the good of your soul. Go to New Mexico Jazz Festival for complete information on all the events.
Cat digs in.
Vocalist Catherine Russell
provides an unanswerable
counterargument to those who would claim that there’s no point in recording yet another
version of vintage-songs-that’ve-been-done-by-many: “These are great songs, and I want to sing them, too.”
You go, girl.
Because she chooses songs that speak to her, and finds a personal way to phrase each and every one of them, Russell reinvigorates material that, in the vocal cords of a lesser singer, might be mere antiques or tired reproductions. Her latest album, Strictly Romancin’ (World Village Records), features songs from the likes of Duke Ellington, Hoagy Carmichael, and Mary Lou Williams, and she and her bandmates comfortably inhabit these tunes, making them feel as present as now.
Russell brings her smooth, supple, resonant alto and fresh phrasing to a free concert this
Saturday in Albuquerque’s Old Town Plaza as part of the New Mexico Jazz Festival, where she’ll be joined by guitarist and musical director Matt Munisteri, pianist Mark Shane, bassist Lee
Hudson, and drummer Mark McLean. (Guitarist Dan Dowling and bassist John Griffin will open the afternoon’s festivities.)