Dena DeRose: Ode To The Road

Vocalist and  pianist Dena DeRose shows off her multiple talents on this swinging session where she cuts and pastes guests to her core team of herself with bassist Martin Wind and drummer Matt Wilson. The album is dominated by compositions by classy mainstream jazz pianists such as Alan Broadbent and Bob Dorough and inn the trio format, she’s rich and slinky on “Ode to the Road”, alluring on the sheer Don’t Ask Why” along with Wind’s clever bass” and she intimately bops on her own “A Tip Of The Hat””. She does a pair of hep duets with boptress Sheila Jordan, sizzling with Wind on “All God’s Chillun Got Rhythm/Little Willie Leaps” and diving into a blues for “Small Day Tomorrow”. Smoky tenor saxist Houston Person blows smoke rings on a warm “The Way We Were” and the suave “The Days of Wine and Roses” as trumpet king Jeremy  Pelt swings it on “Nothing Like You” and gets frisky and brassily brawny on the vaudevillian “Cross Me Off Your List”. DeRose herself knows when to stretch the lyrics, give an extra vibrato, swoop or clip the syllables to perfection, making this a wonderful workshop on jazz vocals.

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