Customer Reviews

I Can See Clearly Now

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Tucson's PBS jazz station caught my attention by playing "Detour Ahead" from this album. When it followed with "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?", this Christy-Connor-O'Day fan was hooked. I bought the CD and got 51 minutes of this fresh new talent's stylings of nine standards and one original. I'm now looking for her two earlier CDs! If you're looking for a new jazz ballad songstress, Dena is worth discovering!

Dena DeRose's recent airing on NPR really grabbed me by the ears. If you haven't heard her, check her out, and you'll immediately understand why. It's hard to recall the last time I was so wowed by a CD (nothing else has motivated my writing a review here). Whoever did the very tasty arrangements deserves the year's gold medal for fresh takes on old standards. Topnotch sidemen throughout deliver some exciting rides, but they'd have to be really bad to taint DeRose's performance on these recordings. Her piano alone is impressive, but her singing - yowza! What an incomparable combination. Diana Krall's sulky looks will never get her around this lady.

I loved the instrumentals, ..... great playing, great music. However, the vocals are the best part of this CD. Dena sings like an angel. Each of her CD's just keep getting better.

Impeccable jazz technique and musical training allow Dena DeRose to "compose" exceptional performances using interpretation and improvisation on existing material. Her uptempo versions of "Never Been in Love Before" and "Detour Ahead" burn without sacrificing feeling and emotion. Music that makes you stop and say "who's that?".

This was the third album from Dena, a singer-pianist from New York with a voice as clear as a bell. The liner notes describe the album as philosophically upbeat, reflecting Dena's mood at the time. While the mood is upbeat, the tempo of the music varies. Six other musicians - Joe Locke (vibes), Joel Frahm (saxophone), Jim Rotondi (trumpet), Dwayne Burno (bass), Mark Taylor (drums) and Mark Wilson (drums) - accompanied Deana on the sessions.

If you love me was originally written by Edith Piaf in French. With a smile was written by Dena, demonstrating that she can write her own material. I can see clearly now was originally a reggae song by Johnny Nash but has been covered in a variety of styles. As well as adapting it to suit her own particular style, Deana slows it right down - very interesting, although the slowness does not make it better. The remaining seven songs are from the Great American Songbook. One of the most famous of these, Day in day out, features a rousing saxophone solo.

If you are looking for a modern jazz album that pays respect to tradition without being constrained by it, then you will enjoy this album.

Super third album. Ms DeRose has a wonderful voice and I never tire of hearing her. Someday I hope she does an album with just her and her piano. I hope she releases another album, soon.

I could quite easily pontificate for five or six paragraphs on the startling, brilliant music that Ms. DeRose produces, but just listening to this album (and her latest, "A Walk in the Park") says it all for me. As a pianist, she synthesizes elements of Red Garland, Ahmad Jamal and Bill Evans into her own personal style; as a singer, she has in my view the clearest, most attractive and best-controlled voice since Ella (though her style is not the same). She sings with a clear, bell-like tone, attacking notes cleanly and with greatly varied swing even in ballads, ending her phrases with a terminal vibrato. Her "trick" of singing with her own improvisations is brilliant - an extension of the similar work done by bassist Slam Stewart in the 1940s and `50s.

Dena DeRose is the modern, female equivalent of Nat "King" Cole. It is indeed a shame that the music and entertainment worlds no longer have room for someone this talented and lacking in superficial attractions (gorgeous looks, wardrobe malfunctions, dancing with her thumb in the belt of her pants a la Britney Spears) to make a big name for herself.

If you enjoy not only Nat Cole but also Garland, Jamal and singers of the quality of Connee Boswell or Mavis Rivers, these CDs are for you.

I stumbled on to this CD quite accidentally when I went through the alphabtical list and when I listened to the first title "If I should lose you", I was completely overwhelmed by her ability to impart on the listener the total feelings the song is meant to convey.I ended up getting all four of her CD's and I never cease asking myself if it is real that talent like Dena exists. I am constantly looking out for more CD from her and certainly would like to have video of any live performance of her.

I purchased this CD after hearing an interview and review on PBS. I consider myself a person of eclectic tastes and not necessarily a jazz fan -- and I really enjoy Dena's sound ... easy listening, mellow and relaxing, yet full of fun. Even my kids like it.