Search - Julia Dollison :: Observatory

'THERE'S THIS SINGER I want you to meet. She's really, really good." When Maria Schneider spoke those words to me five years ago, I took them seriously. What kind of jazz singer, I asked myself, would be interesting enough to catch the ear of the outstanding big-band composer of her generation? Here's the answer. It starts with the voice: warm, airy, dappled with summer sunshine, technically bulletproof from top to bottom. She sings like a horn player in love with lyrics. Her solos are pointed and meaningful, little musical stories that take you to places you've never been. Then comes the style, an alchemical blend of jazz and pop that makes Harold Arlen and Rufus Wainwright sound not like strange bedfellows but the oldest of friends. Don't call it "fusion," though: that might smack of calculation, and there's nothing calculated about Julia's singing. Did I mention the arrangements? "In a Mellotone" is nudged into a joltingly ironic minor key, while "Night and Day" is superimposed atop a Coltrane-like harmonic steeplechase. "All the Things You Are" becomes a spacious, Latin-flavored soundscape decorated with the pastel washes of overdubbed vocals that are Julia's trademark. Her own beautifully crafted songs contain the same surprising twists and turns. This is no mere string of unrelated tunes but a painstakingly wrought musical self-portrait. It says a lot about Julia that she chose to record her first album in the perilously fast company of Ben Monder, whose powerfully individual playing could easily have blown a lesser singer right out of the studio. Instead, Julia floats serenely above it like a morning star, wafted aloft by the propulsive yet thoughtful interplay of Matt Clohesy and Ted Poor. This isn't your ordinary debut album. Julia Dollison has something arrestingly new to say. Listen and marvel. -Terry Teachout