Ellen LaFurn Trio Every Friday Night at Delvina

contents

jazz

Ellen LaFurn Trio
Jazz Standards & Bossas
Every Friday Night
10/16, 10/23 10/30 and 11/6
7:30-10:30 PM
at Delvina Restaurant
172 Piermont Rd.
Cresskill, NJ 07626
201 816-0239
featuring

Ellen LaFurn, vocals
Vic Cenicola, guitar
Ron Naspo, bass

The great American song book plus songs from our new CD, C'est La-Furn!

Fabulous food and great music to start off the weekend
in a relaxed, fun, hip venue.

Come out and join the party!

For C'est - La - Furn, her debut album as a leader, the outstanding jazz vocalist Ellen LaFurn has assembled the key ingredients for excellence in artistic expression – an exemplary cast of musicians and a delightful repertoire of songs. But no recipe can be a total success without its main element – Ellen's lovely, expressive and compelling voice, splendidly rhythmic and with laser-accurate intonation. It's often said that horn players' tones emulate their voices. With Ellen, an excellent flautist, that is fully on point: dulcet, warm and full bodied in the lower register; vividly vibrant and pure in the upper; and all woven cohesively within the rich context of the jazz vocal legacy. The pure essence of jazz vocalizing is on full display whether in evocative balladry or cooking at a rapid tempo.

She provides plenty of solo space for her musicians, particularly guitarist Vic Cenicola and pianist Rave Tesar, who sparkle in both their solos and ensemble support – inventive and dynamic, but always impeccably tasteful and fully within the musical intent. The same holds true for bassist Ron Naspo and Patrick Cuttitta on drums, who round out the quartet. Together they groove and drive flawlessly, not just a skilled set of supporting musicians, but a band running on all cylinders.

The repertoire covers a broad palette of material – jazz classics, timeless items from The Great American Songbook, popular hits and Brazilian. But in the great tradition of vocal artistry, Ellen makes every song her own, and with a freshness and joie de vivre that makes this entire album a delight.

In some cases she utilizes a juxtaposition of the unanticipated approach to offer a surprise to the listener. Michel Legrand, Norman Gimbel and Jacques Demy's Watch What Happens, usually done as a ballad, is a lively medium swinger with Ellen's captivating vocal and a spirited guitar-like bass solo. Neil Hefti's classic Girl Talk, usually playfully syncopated is presented in almost ballad like fashion, with brilliant vocal/piano interplay and a solo by Tesar that pays homage to Basie, with a touch of Red Garland at the end. Ervin Drake's It Was a Very Good Year is transformed from the balladry of the Sinatra hit into an infectious bluesy groover, surging, leaning forward and stoked by her deliciously angular vocal.

Up tempo is also the order – as usual and appropriate – on Ray Noble's Cherokee. An unabashed smoker, it features Ellen's dynamic halved time vocal, cascading piano and a rip-roaring guitar solo with explosive, single note runs that would make Johnny Smith smile. At the other end of the spectrum, Segal and Fisher's When Sunny Gets Blue receives the ballad treatment that is really the only way to sing it. And Ellen does so with exquisite poignancy, further enhanced by Naspo's warmly lyrical bass solo.

Ellen's rhythmic mastery and inspired phrasing adds a special luster to Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler's I've Got The World On A String. She sings teasingly behind the beat with long tones stretched languorously in counter-rhythms to the easy tempo. On Oakland and Hammerstein's I'll Take Romance, her elongated rhythms on the medium tempo surges are striking, and Cenicola's soulful guitar solo has a Grant Green-ish touch. Her take on the Mancini/Mercer gem The Days Of Wine And Roses is a briskly up-tempo excursion marked by riveting guitar and piano solos and Ellen's scintillating vocal.

The Brazilian flavor is richly provided in three pieces – two of which come from the repertoire of Brazilian music's finest composers. Tom Jobim's Dindi (with lyrics by Ray Gilbert and Alonsio De Oliveira) opens with a rubato passage before easing into a Bossa groove with a somewhat bolero flair, marked by a glowing chordal guitar solo and Ellen's wistfully sensuous vocals. Marcos and Paulo Kostenbader Valle's So Nice (Summer Samba) – with English lyrics by Norman Gimbel – is a delicately effervescent samba highlighted by Ellen's exotically sinuous vocal, and with a piano solo as soothing as a gentle summer rain. Sammy Cahn and Gene DePaul's Teach Me Tonight - while not a Brazilian song by any means - has a distinctively Bossa Nova angle on its easy-flowing rhythm, an excellent framework for Ellen's winsome vocal.

Sprightly swing is the mode for the remaining three items. Mercer and Schertzinger's I Remember You is a buoyant sizzler built on deeply wooded walking bass and Ellen's robustly syncopated vocal. I'm Old Fashioned, the Kern/Mercer classic is a bouncy up-tempo jaunt with Ellen's shining vocal bookending the dexterous guitar and piano solos.

C'est - La - Furn is a long overdue debut, but one can only hope that this enchanting album will be followed by many more from this remarkably exceptional vocalist.

write your comments about the article :: © 2015 Jazz News :: home page