Album: Make Room For Me / Artist: Brigitte Zarie / Jazz Vocals - New Standards and Swing
When
musicians such as Grammy Award winning trumpeter Randy Brecker and guitar
virtuoso Jeff Golub agree to play on your album, that serves as significant
validation for you as a jazz vocalist, and when you are able to collaborate
on the songwriting with bassist and producer Neil Jason (John Lennon, Billy
Joel, Bryan Ferry, Hall & Oates), then people better heed jazz chanteuse
Brigitte Zarie’s advice to Make Room For Me, which is the title of
her new CD. Dubbed by this writer as “The Voice,” only to discover that her
close friends had already applied that moniker to her, Zarie, possesses big
vocals that fill up a room, in a great way, and without a conscious effort
to reflect the past, she has created original standards and swing tunes,
which breathe fresh life into a sub genre that seems to keep recycling the
same tired songs, and no matter how great they are, you have to ask, just
how many times can you listen to a plethora of jazz vocalists singing
“Besame Mucho,” “Love For Sale,” or “The Girl From Iapanema?”
When she told her producer Neil Jason that she wanted to create a big band sound, he replied “Of course you do,” no doubt thinking about what a major logistics and financial undertaking that represented, and how few artists other than Maria Schneider and Liz Callaway have even ventured down that recording path in recent days. Nevertheless, backed by an orchestra that includes the horn section from the Late Show with David Letterman, the tandem of Zarie and Jason, with the assistance of sound engineer Tovi Rodriguez were able to create delicious tunes such as the opening track “See You Again,” which is introduced by Randy Brecker’s plaintive trumpet, as the duo conjures up images of Shirley Horn, alone on stage, late at night, in a sparsely populated club.
“What’s Wrong With Me,” rolls out next with Brigitte Zarie’s breathtaking phrasing, and with all due respect to the many gifted jazz vocalists today, nobody does a better job of recreating the type of passionate singing that belonged to another era. Zarie is a better singer than Norah Jones and she could school Canada’s Sophie Milman on how to sing a tune with emotion. That is not a knock against those two premier artists, but simply a testament to the excellence of Brigitte Zarie. While questioning her role in a relationship that appears to be slipping away, Zarie is vulnerable and her velvety vocals are beautifully accompanied by pianist Peter Zak and saxophonist Lawrence Feldman, who also serves up an evocative solo during “What’s Wrong With Me,” while David Wolfert conducts the orchestra.
Although, Brigitte Zarie has absolutely no blemishes in her vocal performance, one never comes away from the songs which comprise Make Room For Me, feeling that this was an antiseptic technical performance, because she sings with such heartfelt passion and evokes such strong emotions from the listener that you want to wrap your arms around her and console her as she coos “What’s Wrong With Me,” and you want to lead her by the hand to the dance floor and dance with her as she swings on the title track “Make Room For Me,” and the upbeat “Happiest Day Of My Life.” The album Make Room For Me should become a standard against which all young and upcoming jazz vocalists measure themselves.
This album is so well produced by Neil Jason that the music and the singer are always in perfect balance, and that is evident on “Take It Easy,” as you notice the subtlety of the orchestra, Jeff Golub’s superb guitar accompaniment and Zarie’s vocals leading the way. The textures created by the musicians and the singer flow together seamlessly.
One senses that Brigitte Zaire would have brought a smile to the face of Peggy Lee, Bobby Darin or my friend Roger Kellaway as she delivers a commanding performance on “Happiest Day Of My Life,” a song that gives the listener a seat right by the stage. In our soon to be published interview with Zaire she revealed that one of the secrets to recreating such a live sound for Make Room For Me, is that in fact this album was recorded live, a rarity in this day and age, when musicians are seldom in the studio at the same time. For this album, the entire orchestra was assembled at the same time and if “Happiest Day Of My Life,” does not get you juiced, then you are just as constipated as the directors of music programming for some and we emphasize the word “some” jazz stations who are fretting over the fact they do not know how to fit this collection of songs into their formats. Just play the songs!! Fortunately, there are a lot of astute music people out there who are already clamoring over this unbelievably gifted artist and who recognize that she has the ability to reshape the way that we have come to think of standards and swing music. In a jazz market that has lost a lot of credibility in recent years, not because the artists lack talent, but because they and their labels lack imagination, Brigitte Zarie and producer Neil Jason have become innovators instead of followers.
We only touched on the first five songs of this eleven track album, but the remaining six tunes, including a French version of “Make Room For Me,” are all gems. It has been demonstrated over the years that when an artist is really good at his or her craft, they are able to lure listeners from other genres of music and Brigitte Zarie is one of the singers with the potential to accomplish that.
To listen to the music of Brigitte Zarie please click on this link.
Reviewed February 2010
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