Reviews of Ann’s New CD, "Blues In The Night" and Latest Shows
March 4, 2008
JAZZ REVIEW
Live: 'A Tribute to Ella'
Singers from jazz and R & B explore the First Lady of Song's oeuvre at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Ella Fitzgerald had so many musical qualities to admire that it's no surprise that it took a lineup of five very different singers to explore them in "A Tribute To Ella" Sunday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall. And even that wasn't enough to fully display the rich diversity of the First Lady of Song.
The inner creativity -- the quest to make a song her own -- that was at the heart of Fitzgerald's singing was best illustrated by veteran vocalist Mark Murphy. At 75, he's equally comfortable moving from the Swing Era to contemporary pop. Of his three songs, Murphy's ballad renderings of "I'm Through With Love" and "Body and Soul" were the most impressive. Finding the heart of the stories, moving lyrics around, winging freely across the harmonies, he transformed classics into up-to-the-minute interpretations, simmering with emotional density. Just the way Ella would have done.
There also couldn't have been better choices to explore Fitzgerald's cool lyricism, innate musicality and swinging improvisations than Ann Hampton Callaway and Janis Siegel. Both possess extraordinary vocal instruments, and both move easily across the vast range from intimate balladry to up-tempo scatting.
Callaway took on the daunting task of handling three hard-swinging Fitzgerald classics: "Mr. Paganini," "Lady Be Good" and "How High the Moon." And she delivered on every count, applying her unique scatting style and remarkable range, occasionally tossing in whimsical instrumental simulations. The only thing missing was the opportunity to hear Callaway sing a songbook ballad.
The Manhattan Transfer's Siegel, like Callaway and Fitzgerald a singer for all seasons, brought velvety warmth to "Midnight Sun" followed by big-band panache to "Like Young."
Singer-actor T.C. Carson added the hip swagger of the Swing Era to his versions of "Satin Doll" and "Summertime." Strutting an occasional dance step, his feature number exchange on the latter with drummer Ndugu Chancler was one of the evening's visual highlights.
The audience darling, however, was singer Ledisi, a 2008 Grammy nominee for best new artist and R&B album. Although the jazz skills she displayed on "Fly Me to the Moon" and, especially, a climactic "Blues in the Night," were minimal, her spirited, gospel-driven voice and engaging desire to please were enough to bring a trace of Fitzgerald's beyond-genre enthusiasm to her performance.
Most numbers were accompanied by a big band, conducted by music director Patrice Rushen and filled with the Southland's finest players. The audio, which sounded oddly slanted and muddy, perhaps as a result of the angled bandstand, did not favor the singers, and the most effective numbers in this otherwise entertaining evening were those backed only by the rhythm section and -- for Murphy's selections -- pianist Tom Garvin.
Don Heckman - SPECIAL TO THE TIMES
Put down that cell phone and 'Swing, Swing, Swing' at the Phil
By PEG GOLDBERG LONGSTRETH, Naples News
OK, let's say you're part of what is referred to as "the younger
generation." You have a cell phone permanently growing out of one ear, with
which your mouth is permanently engaged; an iPod is growing out of the
second ear. You cannot function without noise, have a nervous breakdown at
the sounds of silence. Your brain is bathed with incessant text messaging,
with the intricacies of Bluetooth, digital/analog surround sound, Wii or
violence-driven, sexually explicit lyrics.
You find the "stuff" being played in this week's program something your
grandparents or, God forbid, even your great-grandparents, would have
enjoyed in the vapors of the far distant past.
You wouldn't be caught dead listening to it.
You may not have known the titles to a single selection of the music
currently playing at the Philharmonic Center for the Arts Pops II program,
"Swing"; you may not know the lyrics, but unless you've just arrived on
Earth from some far distant planet, you could not help but recognize the
sounds and rhythms reverberating off the walls of the Phil this week in
seven all-but-sold-out performances.
The music is that well-known.
So it should come as no surprise that Wednesday evening's performance had
the audience begging for more, as the incredibly talented, perpetual motion
guest conductor/arranger, Jack Everly, put the hot playing Naples
Philharmonic Orchestra through its paces.
But that was only half of the evening's treats.
The other half was the presence of Ann Hampton Callaway, she with the simply
amazing voice, diva blessings and pure chutzpah.
What? You've never heard of her either? Then you definitely are not of this
planet.
She owned the stage - and the audience's hearts - for fully half of the
program. This raven-haired creature, who somehow was able to walk on her
impossibly high, stiletto-heeled Manolo Blahniks, literally blew away any
cobwebs off the ceiling.
And she did it, song after song, note after impossible note, and made it
look easy.
The result? It was another Energizer Bunny kind of night: One where the
pearls just kept coming, where my notes were filled to overflowing with a
host of superlatives and exclamation marks.
In theory, there were about 20 selections. In actuality, there were at least
snippets of about 30 more embedded in the program's choices. Everly warmed
up the audience with yet one more memorable arrangement of his, this one
simply entitled "Big Band Parade."
John Williams' "Swing, Swing, Swing" was up next, followed by a memorable
Artie Shaw arrangement of the legendary Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine."
It was in this selection the audience first got a hint that the Phil has a
major, major talent in one its more recent hires: a 20-something clarinetist
named Ashley Ragle. By the time the night ended, you could add me to her fan
club. She is that special.
Granted, she looks nothing like a pops/jazz/Dixieland clarinetist. She has
none of the body language of the greats, people like Benny Goodman. Forget
all that. Most of that she can learn. After all, she was trained as a
classical musician. Swaying to the rhythm is hardly something she learned,
hardly something that would get her a job in a classical-only venue. What is
mesmerizing is to listen to how good she is at this stage in her career.
She shined in any number of selections, including Artie Shaw's arrangement
of Rudolph Friml and Oscar Hammerstein's "Indian Love Call." It was the
evening's final selection, "Sing, Sing, Sing," the creation of the great
Louis Prima and arranged by Goodman, that let Ragle really win over the
audience.
But there were lots of opportunities for other individual Phil members to
shine: principal trumpeter, Matt Sonneborn; trombonist Michael Zion; harpist
Dickie Fleisher; the entire saxophone section; the violins during Leroy
Anderson's "Jazz Pizzicato"; and, of course, Kevin Mauldin (principal bass)
and a mega-talented drummer, Mark Goldberg, both of whom were front and
center during the entire evening.
And Callaway?
She has an electric voice, used, at times, in impossibly funny commentary.
In the midst of first one, then another wondrously performed number ("Let's
Fall in Love," "With a Song in my Heart," Cole Porter's "From This Moment
On"), Callaway called upon the audience to toss out words they thought
described Naples so she could transform them into an utterly hysterical
improvised tribute to Naples.
You had to be there to hear her results, as at times her lyrics dissolved
into a song filled with "love" for concertmaster Glenn Basham. Basham
survived the smoldering words and rose to the occasion by standing and
musically offering up his own "answer" to her.
So what were the words she transformed into a love song to Naples, you ask?
Try working golf, sex on the beach, palm trees, green line, la la land and
about six other words into a song.
Another great Everly arrangement, "It's Been a Long, Long Time," which had
Callaway and Matt Sonneborn blowing away the audience, still impossibly more
pearls, and it was over.
Don't miss an opportunity to hear this mega-program. A few tickets remain.
Buy one, even if you have to sit on the outer edges. You'll thank me for
recommending it.
Peg Goldberg Longstreth was trained as a classical musician. E-mail her at
jlongstreth@plgart.com.
MUSICAL GREETINGS THAT SWING ANGELICALLY
December 21, 2007
Unabashed sentimentalism and bottom-line emotion are at the heart of Ms. Callaway’s new show at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola.
The pop-jazz singer Ann Hampton Callaway possesses what I think of as a quintessential Christmas voice. Sweet and pure, with a fluty upper register, her sound transports you to an ethereal realm where the air is thin and clear, and moonlight lends the snow on the earth below a bluish tint.
When Ms. Callaway sings “Over the Rainbow” in her new show, “A Holiday Celebration,” at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, all her strengths come into play. She is an unabashed sentimentalist whose bottom-line emotion is a girlish yearning for romantic rescue culminating in a fairy-tale ending.
At the first of two shows on Wednesday evening “Over the Rainbow” was one of three songs in which Ms. Callaway expressed that core aspect of her musical personality. The others were “A Christmas Love Song,” by Johnny Mandel and Alan and Marilyn Bergman, and Ms. Callaway’s own sparkly musical greeting card, “God Bless My Family,” a shameless compendium of pop clichés that might give even Celine Dion pause. Ms. Callaway was accompanied by Ted Rosenthal on piano, Jay Leonhart on bass and Victor Lewis on drums.
In the past decade and a half Ms. Callaway has cultivated an improvisational jazz style in which she suggests a somewhat disembodied Ella Fitzgerald. She can scat as fast anybody, but the notes (even in her lower register) emanate more from the head than from the gut. She swings, but angelically. Her most impressive technical display on Wednesday was the filigree she applied to Chick Corea’s “Spain,” (lyrics by Al Jarreau) executed with perfect pitch and timing.
If Ms. Callaway hadn’t displayed her playful side, her show might have felt like biting into a cream puff covered with layers of powdered sugar and sprinkled with candy sequins. As she sang “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” with Mr. Leonhart, who relished his role of sly hipster wolf, their musical flirtation was more than just discreetly making eyes. It was sexy and fun.
STEPHEN HOLDEN, The New York Times
Ann Hampton Callaway
And the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra
SWING INTO THE HOLIDAYS
December 15, 2007
A new holiday tradition may have been born on Thursday night, when the Chicago Jazz Orchestra celebrated Christmas in swing time.
Everything about this evening – from the luster of the music-making to the enthusiasm of the audience response – suggested that the CJO may have hit on a savvy way of ringing in the season with a distinctly jazz attitude.
Better still, the performance at the Harris Theater, though slightly flawed, was not a festival of treacle. With an exceptional guest soloist singing music from two widely loved Christmas albums, the CJO proved that it's possible to evoke yuletide sentiments without becoming merely sentimental.
In large part, the success of this evening owed to its unusual approach: a concert revival of excerpts from classic holiday recordings by Ella Fitzgerald and Barbra Streisand. Though the two singers rarely are mentioned in the same breath, it was the very contrasts of their styles – Fitzgerald's brilliant scat singing versus Streisand's long, bel canto lines – that kept matters interesting.
Few singers would dare take on repertoire associated with both divas, and fewer still would have the vocal equipment to do so. But former Chicagoan Ann Hampton Callaway, an accomplished singer in mainstream jazz/cabaret repertoire, long ago established her virtuosity in Fitzgerald-like vocal flights and her sensuousness of tone in Streisand-inspired arias.
Granted, at this late date, no one is going to upstage either Fitzgerald or Streisand in the musical arenas they defined. But Callaway didn't try to. Instead, singing highlights from Fitzgerald's "Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas" recording and Streisand's "A Christmas Album," Callaway filtered each legend's musical sensibility through her own.
So when the headliner lavished her gorgeous, mid-range tone on long-held notes in "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" (taken at a gloriously slow tempo), she reminded listeners less of Streisand and more of Callaway.
CJO artistic director Jeff Lindberg transcribed the original arrangements and conducted them with considerable attention to glistening orchestral detail.
Still, there were a few glitches. Tenor saxophonist Eric Schneider seemed to be playing exciting solos, but the errant miking prevented him from being heard properly. And Callaway had some uncharacteristic difficulty with her highest and lowest notes during the opening portions of the concert, though the problem was mostly remedied after a while.
Nevertheless, an audience that filled more than half the huge Harris Theater expressed its appreciation so enthusiastically that an annual holiday-themed offering is possible. Or at least one hopes so.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE, Howard Reich,Tribune arts critic
Click here to read the original article.
NEW YORK SUN - APRIL 23, 2007:
Carrying the Torch for Sarah and Ella
Why is it that the only movies with any decent music in them these days are brooding historical dramas about the dark, evil days of the Cold war? I'm referring to "Good Night, and Good Luck," which prominently featured Dianne Reeves, and "The Good Shepherd," which did the same for Ann Hampton Callaway.Perhaps it's because Ms. Reeves and Ms. Callaway are two of our strongest and most talented links to history. When these two über-talented singers first emerged, the giants of Jazz's golden era were still on the circuit. But in the years since Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald died, Ms. Reeves and Ms. Callaway have dutifully taken the torch, growing into the finest representatives of the art of contemporary singing
. . .
Click here to read a pdf of the full article.
NEW YORK SUN, Will Friedwald
JAZZ TIMES, December 2006:
"Singing the blues to express happiness? Such is the inspired theme of this latest disc from the marvelously versatile Ann Hampton Callaway. As Callaway tells it, she was knee-deep in preparation, ready to deliver the standard themes of struggle and heartache that are expected from a nearly all-blues set. Then, proving herself as deft a listener as she is a singer, Callaway started dissecting the selected lyrics and came to the surprising discovery that at the true heart of each was the quest, challenging as it might be, for inner joy. And so from Callaway, who has consistently delighted us for nearly two decades by marching to her own musical drummer, a dozen tracks of bliss-yearning blues.
To set the pace, Callaway joins forces with Sherrie Maricle’s Diva Jazz Orchestra for a hard-boppin’ ride through the self-penned “Swingin’ Away the Blues.” Two other Callaway originals later follow, including the cleverly self-deprecating “The I’m-Too-White-to-Sing-the-Blues” and the distinctly Lambert, Hendricks and Ross-esque “Hip to Be Happy.” Throughout the rest, Callaway’s inherent Jo Stafford-ness invades, adding a piquantly iced smokiness to the likes of “It’s All Right with Me,” “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most” and gorgeously tender treatment of Sondheim’s “No One Is Alone.” But Callaway can’t keep her cockeyed optimism entirely in check. Hence the change-of-pace finish – a sun-dappled “The Glory of Love” that could chase away even the meanest blues."
JAZZ TIMES, Christopher Loudon
QU CHRONICLE, November 14, 2006:
Jazz artist provides mature music for QU audience
"Ann Hampton Callaway made her Quinnipiac debut on Wednesday, Nov. 8 in Buckman Theatre as part of The Sonny Costanza Concert Series. She is an award-winning, multi-platinum artist from Chicago who proved throughout her performance that jazz is not dead.
Callaway is a singer, songwriter, pianist and actress. She has recorded more than 40 CDs as a soloist and a guest artist combined. Callaway was also in the hit Broadway play "Swing" which earned her a Tony Award nomination for "Best Featured Actress in a Musical."
Buckman was packed for Callaway's performance, mostly with men and women ranging from 45-70 years old, with only a few students there. The crowd adored her from the moment she walked out because of her mature humor and her talent. After every song she received claps, yells, and whistles. After performing "Blue Moon," her last song she made up while playing the piano to bid the audience good-bye, she received a standing ovation.
Callaway's voice is sophisticated and classic. She sings from the heart with happiness in her voice. Her use of voice effects and skat singing is unreal. She was able to make the sound of a trumpet just with her voice that sounded like she took lessons from Louis Armstrong. She reached high and low notes that were off the charts and she did it all at ease. Her ability to channel the great Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan through her voice, making it sound like they were actually on stage with her, was amazing.
Her presence on stage was overwhelmed with passion, a positive attitude and a great sense of humor. Her energy never diminished throughout her entire performance and she constantly had a smile accompanying her voice.
Her attitude, talent and stage presence just made everyone stare at her in awe and with smiles. Her talent is as big as her passion and humor. Although she's no newcomer, she should be a new addition to everyone's iPod. Crowd favorites were her covers of Carol King's "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" and "Blue Moon.""
QU CHRONICLE, Erin Bohmer
CHICAGO TRIBUNE, November 5, 2006:
Callaways' 'Relative Harmony' far more than ordinary sister act
"The two singers who traversed everything from Broadway standards to classic be-bop over the weekend share a bond not often encountered among vocal duos these days: They're sisters.
That helps explain why they breathe, phrase and articulate with unusual synchronicity, but bloodline isn't the only reason.As they reminded listeners over the weekend, Ann Hampton Callaway and Liz Callaway each happen to be highly polished interpreters of particular facets of American songwriting. Ann ranks among the most technically accomplished jazz singers; Liz exemplifies the age-old tradition of straight-ahead, straight-to-the-gut Broadway phrasemaking.
Put the two together, and you have "Relative Harmony," their latest show, which played to a large and enthusiastic audience Saturday night at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie (someone ought to shorten that name).
From the incendiary version of "Some People" that opened the evening to the slow-and-dreamy "Happy Days Are Here Again" near the end, the Callaway sisters covered a sweeping range of styles, techniques and musical perspectives. Though they occasionally pushed volume levels a bit hard and sometimes overplayed the mock rivalry between them, the Callaways nevertheless turned in vivid song readings.
In effect, each makes the other sound better. Liz's generally warm vocal tone and disarming stage manner, in other words, takes the edge off of Ann's piercing timbre and larger-than-life persona. Ann's rhythmic drive and Ella Fitzgerald-inspired scat singing, meanwhile, lend heat and energy to Liz's otherwise unhurried melody lines.
Some of the best work in the show played out during a medley of two blues-inspired nocturnes, "Stormy Weather" and "When the Sun Comes Out." To hear the Callaways trading long lyric phrases at one moment, harmonizing radiantly the next, was to understand anew the uniqueness of this partnership."
CHICAGO TRIBUNE, Howard Reich
REVIEW/PREVIEW - SPECIAL TO THE COURANT:
"Remarkably versatile, technically flawless yet emotionally expressive, vocalist/composer/lyricist Ann Hampton Callaway is a living, breathing, one-woman musical academy of the fine art of jazz, pop, Broadway and cabaret singing.
Classically trained and graced with a gorgeous voice and keen musical intelligence, the New York-based performer sounds at home with her three-octave range in any musical setting, whether singing with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra or with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops.
Riding the rising critical acclaim for her new release, "Blues in the Night" (her Telarc debut), Callaway performs Nov. 8 at 7:30 p.m. at Quinnipiac University’s Buckman Theater on the Hamden campus. The free concert is the third event in Quinnipiac’s five-part Sonny Costanzo 2006-2007 Concert Series.
One of the finest, warmest keepers-of-the-flame of the great American Songbook and the toast of the New York cabaret scene, Callaway has herself written more than 250 songs for television, Broadway, off-Broadway and film. Artists ranging from Barbra Streisand and Liza Minelli to Peter Nero and Harvey Fierstein have performed her songs and lyrics.
As a singer/actress, she was nominated for a Tony Award for "Best Actress in a Musical" for her performance in "Sing!" And like many great jazz vocalists, such as Shirley Horne and Nina Simone, Callaway, who grew up in a musical family in Chicago, is an accomplished pianist as well. Her mother, Shirley is a pianist/singer and a much sought-after vocal coach. Her sister and sometime collaborator, Liz Callaway, is a noted Broadway singer/actress who has performed in "Miss Saigon," "Cats" and "Baby."
Often in one of Ann Hampton Callaway’s performances, she’ll sit down at the piano and, in a bold signature display of her improvisational skills, ask the audience to suggest random words or phrases that she’ll turn into a pop song.
Using whatever odd, if not also weird mix of shouted out words as her basic building blocks, Callaway creates often hilarious, coherent pop songs. It’s a spontaneous tour de force in mental/musical prestidigitation worthy of, if not a Mozart or a Cole Porter, then at least a match for such extemporaneous keyboard wits as Victor Borge or Steve Allen.
Callaway’s natural, engaging stage-presence, quick sense of humor, irrepressible enthusiasm, striking good looks and beautiful voice first caused a stir on the New York cabaret scene in late 1979 when she arrived in the Big Apple after two years at the University of Illinois.
The New York Times has hailed the Chicago transplant with high praise: "For sheer vocal beauty, no contemporary singer matches Ms. Callaway."
Early on as a vocal student, one of Callaway’s teachers was so impressed with the natural beauty of her vice, her precocious pitch-perfect control and colorful, wide-swooping vocal range that she encouraged her to pursue a career in classical music. But Callaway was already turned on by a host of pop/jazz vocalists ranging from Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan to Stevie Wonder and Joni Mitchell.
Any arias she would sing would be poperatic, not operatic, and would be written by such American masters and vernacular tunesmiths and wordsmiths as George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer, or Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart.
After Callaway made a name for herself in cabaret, she was encouraged by the legendary jazz pianist and mentor George Shearing to take a giant step into the jazz world, using her great chops and emotional warmth to simultaneously sing and swing.
Devoted to her craft, Callaway would never be satisfied to be just another pretty voice, or—for that matter--just another pretty face in the music world. So jazz expression, with its stress on spontaneity, creative phrasing and inventive play with rhythms and its chromatic range of harmonic colors and moods, obviously was yet another significant means of conveying her dedicated art of the vocal.
On "After Ours" (Denon Records), a superb disc Callaway recorded in 1994, she took that giant step with a little bit of help from such jazz notables as Kenny Barron, Jay Leonhart, Bob Mintzer and Randy Brecker.
Leonhart, in the album’s liner notes, welcomed what he called Callaway’s first "pure jazz album," noting that "though all of her recordings are jazz influenced, none of them present her jazz artistry quite like this one does."
"Her voice, her range and control through the octaves, her marvelous phrasing, interpretation, and musicianship clearly indicate," Leonhart adds, "that AHC (his acronymic nickname for Ann Hampton Callaway) has joined the great jazz singers".
Shearing, who has long had a pitch-perfect ear for talent was proven to be quite prescient about Callaway’s jazz abilities.
As a jazz minstrel, she’s performed internationally from tributes to Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee and Harold Arlen at Carnegie Hall in New York City to a sold-out engagement with Russian jazz star Igor Butman at Le Club in Moscow.
Joined on her new Telarc disc by such jazz luminaries as her pianist and music director, Ted Rosenthal, and special guests, including bassist Christian McBride and drummer Lewis Nash, Callaway is totally immersed in jazz, a deep blues-feeling, American Songbook ballads and jazzy originals.
In a smart coup, the diva is backed on many of the album’s dozen tracks by Diva, the formidable, all female jazz orchestra led by the dynamic drummer Sherrie Maricle. Indeed, the cabaret master is quite cozy rocking in rhythm on top of the robust, supple, sound of Maricle’s big band swing machine. And she’s just as comfortable grooving in the all-star piano trio format led by Rosenthal.
On a great standard like "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most," Callaway sings with great sensitivity, showing, as usual, a profound understanding of the song’s
lyrics. Perhaps because of her stage experience, her vocal delivery always sounds as if she has lived with and thought profoundly about the meaning and mood of the words she sings.
Her sense of absolute control over her material shines through on pieces like "Willow Weep for Me" and on a slow, dramatic rendition of "It’s All Right with Me." Her precision and musical mastery recall the cool vocal perfection and intelligence of the great Jo Stafford, who set lasting benchmark standards of smart musicianship and craftsmanship for vocalists in the 1940s and ‘50s.
Along with technical polish, Callaway, emits plenty of pure feeling, as on "Blues in the Night" and in an ecstatic, high-energy, gospel-fueled romp through "Blue Moon." All the stops are pulled on her soaring jazz flight through "Lover Come Back to Me."
There’s even a little endearing touch of "all in the family" on the new disc as Callaway sings a duet with her sister, Liz, a Broadway star who was once described by critic Rex Reed as "a lyrical lark of a show stopper."
Together, the sisters sing a sweet, sophisticated duet on a two-part medley, "Stormy Weather" and "When the Sun Comes Out," recalling their award-winning two-woman stage show and subsequent album, both aptly named, "Sibling Revelry."
Before Callaway’s swaggering grand finale, an exhilarating rendition of "The Glory of Love," she sings several originals, including an amusing, self-deprecating homage to great, black blues singers called, "The I’m-Too-White-to-Sing-the-Blues Blues."
Her witty lyrics are a tongue-in-cheek lament for a terminally unhip, white woman singer who, despite having a name that echoes those of two legendary black musicians, Lionel Hampton and Cab Calloway, is just too whitebread to ever really get down with the blues no matter how hard she strives.
Here’s part of her comical, bluesy self-parody:
Lionel wasn’t Pappy.
Neither was ‘ol Cab.
Ev’ry day I curse the way
My life is dull and drab.
Sometimes when I’m lonely,
I think I have my chance.
I try to sing "St. Louis Blues"
To my cat and my houseplants.
But my cat gets catatonic.
My violets start to shrink.
When the ivy starts to climb the walls,
It’s time to pour a drink.
Each time I try, I lose.
I’ve got the I’m-Too-White-to-Sing-the-Blues Blues!
Along with Callaway’s savory servings of jazz, blues-inspired numbers and samples of her wry and gingery lyrics, she presents one pure, moving reminder of her dramatic prowess as a cabaret singer in an elegantly crafted rendition of Stephen Sondheim’s "No One Is Alone." Emotionally direct, the jewel-like song shines with the clarity, precision and beauty that could be matched only by the bel canto cabaret diva Karen Akers.
No doubt, Callaway will be dipping into songs from her new Telarc release, plus her expansive, noble pop/jazz/cabaret repertoire that ranges from a Duke, as in Ellington, to a King, as in Carole.
Although the Quinnipiac concert is free to the public, there is a limit of two tickets per person. For tickets and information: 203-582-8937."
THE HARTFORD COURANT - Owen McNally
OCTOBER 31, 2006:
Ann Hampton Callaway @ Catalina's October 27, 2006
"Replete with a potent mixture of talent, Midwest charm and moxie, singer/songwriter Ann Hampton Callaway gave the packed crowd at Catalina's a complete alternative to the legion of waify Krall impersonators. Instead of the usual sweet and petite renditions of the Great American Songbook, Ms. Callaway blistered through a rocking set of standards and self-penned tunes (or "Ann-dards") that showed a confidence and grasp of musical showmanship that has been missing in many of today's so-called vocalists.
Supported by the air-tight rhythm section of pianist/Benny Green (when is HE going to have something new out?), bassist/Kevin Axt and drummer/Ray Brinker, Callaway thrilled the audience with her astonishing vocal range as she completely mastered songs like Cole Porter's "It's All Right With Me" and "Just One of Those Things." On the former, her voice reached down to a luscious and rich low alto that sent shivers through your spine. On the cleverly Latinized version of the latter, her well timed use of the lyrics weaved in, out and in between Green's electrifying piano and Brinker's pulsating drum. Disarming, charming, and with a dash of Chicagoan quirkiness, Callaway roared through clever self-penned tunes like "I'm too White to Sing the Blues."
Closing the set with a sauntering and high stepping "Blue Moon", Callaway put the crowd on notice that Midwestern values of sincerity and hard work will outlast the shallow glitz of most "entertainers" any night of the week. Especially this night."
ALL ABOUT JAZZ LA - By George W. Harris
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, October 30, 2006
Catalina's, Hollywood, Thursday, Oct. 26
"Ann Hampton Callaway opened the first of her four nights at Catalina's on Thursday with a devastating number satirizing Billie Holiday singing "God Bless the Child," followed by a hilarious sendup of Sarah Vaughan careening through "Misty."
This took guts, not to mention chops, but most of all it took an exact sense of just how much you can get away with. She learned such things from her long nights of field training in the clubs and cabarets of Manhattan.
The guts she probably got from growing up in Chicago, where she stuck bravely to Sarah and Billie while all her friends were prisoners of the Doors and the Dead.
And as she drove home such cheery tunes of her own as "Swinging Away the Blues" and "Hip to Be Happy," she let you know that in the Midwest, optimism is not regarded as embarrassing like it is in the decadent East.
But she never let this disgusting philosophy overshadow the music, over which she showed an indisputable mastery.
She chose, for instance, to sing such tunes as "It's All Right with Me," "Blue Moon" and "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" at languorous tempos that gave her ample room to show the sheen and intensity of her vocal colors, her command of pitch and intonation and her sure sense of the drama in a phrase.
Plus, she made it fun.
These virtues were not lost when the tempo went race-trackward on "Just One of Those Things" and "Lover Come Back to Me." Her pianist for the evening, Benny Green, was a model of reliability and creativity at either speed.
His aplomb was particularly evident when Callaway got serious with an asymmetrical Stephen Sondheim tune called "No One Is Alone" from "Into the Woods." She never lost the shape of the piece, and with a delicate touch, Green brushed in a stroke of blues to backlight the craggy outline from time to time.
Like all the other numbers, this one had an amusing precede.
She once feared to sing Sondheim, she said, because of his legendary intolerance for performers who think they can improve on his carefully weighed writings.
But then, riding an elevator after a Bernadette Peters concert, she ran into the singer, who exclaimed that "this was the first time she had the nerve to sing Sondheim her way."
Callaway took this to heart, she said, and when she finished up "No One Is Alone" this night, it was no trouble to believe her."
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER - Tony Gieske
JAZZIZ, OCTOBER, 2006:
"Best known as a leading diva on the cabaret scene, Callaway sets aside the
somewhat studied and staid vocal style associated with ballad crooning for
often gritty and always emotion-packed readings of a dozen tracks associated
with uptown style blues.
The moods range from pensive works like "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the
Most" and "Willow Weep for Me" to such finger-snappin' fare as "The Glory of
Love." Callaway presents many sides of her vocal personality, and all of
them are captivating - she's a master of her craft, with a pitch-perfect
voice that's particularly radiant in its mid- and lower ranges. She also has
an intuitive sense of drama and dynamics.
Callaway is also an accomplished composer. Three of the session's standout
tracks are her creations, including "Swingin' Away the Blues" and playful
"The I'm-Too-White-To-Sing-The-Blues Blues."
She's also an arranger, sharing that chore with such stalwarts as Tommy
Newsom and Matt Catingub. While she plays piano, too, on this session she
leaves that in the capable hands of Ted Rosenthal, who's joined on a number
of combo arrangements by bassist Christian McBride and drummer Lewis Nash.
On hand for four of the tracks, including the smoky title tune, are drummer
Sherrie Maricle and her stellar Diva Jazz Orchestra.
Topping it all off is an appearance by singing sister Liz Callaway on the
medley of "Stormy Weather" and "When the Sun Comes Out," a great tune that
goes back to the days of Jimmy Dorsey's big band and vocalist Helen
O'Connell. The blues theme aside, this snazzy recording will have Callaway's
fans jumping for joy."
OCTOBER 5, 2006:
Full-bodied jazz vocals are the style in this voluptuous offering that finds
the singer flying oh-so-high on a tasty selection of standards. Long a
Tucson favorite, Ann Hampton Callaway pulls out all the stops, as she likes
to say, in recording this collection.
Of course, Callaway also includes a few of her own self-penned songs, which
she always calls "Ann-dards." There is the whimsically titled "The
I'm-Too-White-To-Sing-The-Blues Blues" and a very swinging "Swinging Away
the Blues." We also get her optimistic advice to pop culture's terminally
depressed in the bouncy "Hip To Be Happy."
But listen to that well-worn title, "Blue Moon," a song with shiny pants if
there ever was one. Somehow Callaway finds new buttons to push in these
threadbare changes, turning the familiar melody into a running swoop of
spontaneous flight full of sensual curves and ecstatic thrills.
The song list also includes that insider favorite "Spring Can Really Hang
You Up The Most," as well as additional weather commentary in her medley
"Stormy Weather/When the Sun Comes Out." Genuine swing fills "Lover Come
Back to Me," plaintive reflection shimmers through "Willow Weep For Me."
Just for contrast, we get Stephen Sondheim's "No One Is Alone." Heard in the
heightened awareness of this musical setting, Sondheim's own understated way
with melody can be more fully appreciated.
Grade: A
SEPTEMBER 27, 2006:
Put on this CD at a gathering of friends and someone is bound to inquire
about Callaway, the woman with the strong, deep voice. Callaway, who has
performed with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and Boston Pops and at
Carnegie Hall, has a potent voice with a special character. On this CD she
fills a variety of classics such as "Blue Moon," "Stormy Weather" and
"Blues in the Night" with fresh vigor and deep feeling. She also shines in
the funny "I'm-Too-White-To-Sing-the-Blues Blues." She's backed by strong
jazz session players like bassist Christian McBride and drummer Lewis Nash
and gets support from Sherrie Maricle and the Diva Jazz Orchestra, an
all-woman big band.
THE KALAMAZOO GAZETTE, CD REVIEWS - By William R. Wood
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2006:
MUSIC REVIEW COLUMBUS JAZZ ORCHESTRA
Callaway provides some pep.
Singer Ann Hampton Callaway sizzled in the Columbus Jazz Orchestra’s 2006-07 season opener last night in the Southern Theatre.
Callaway’s voice, along with her wit and intelligence, proved overwhelming for the opening concert in the orchestra’s "Great American Songbook" series.
Nearly everything she sang was great, from the opening Swinging Away the Blues, to the sultry Teach Me Tonight, the pretty Cole Porter song It’s All Right With Me, a rousing Blue Moon and the hot Blues in the Night, the title track of her latest CD.
When Callaway performed with the orchestra in 2003, she paid tribute to Ella Fitzgerald. Last night, it was Peggy Lee.
"My mother said ‘Less is more.’ I never listened to her, but I listened to Peggy Lee," Callaway said, before singing the sweet I Don’t Know Enough About You. Next came a smoldering, finger-snapping version of Fever.
Callaway’s pianist, Ted Rosenthal, ably led the orchestra during her portion of the concert.
Callaway not only gave the audience a "diva blessing" and a "diva hug," she also did a "Columbus, Ohio, love song." In an amazing feat of extemporaneous composition, she used the audience’s suggestions — Brutus, capital, Long Street, High Street, Broad Street, OSU, Cowtown, jazz, shoe, Woody, Blue Jackets — and turned it into a funny love song, rhyming "siren" with "Byron" in the chorus as she played the piano and Columbus Jazz Orchestra artistic director Byron Stripling played trumpet.
Stripling noted Callaway’s "perfect intonation and a sense of swing" when he introduced her. Some in the audience marveled at the control Callaway has of the instrument that is her voice, and wondered why she isn’t better known. Let’s hope that changes soon.
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH - Gary Budzak
SEPTEMBER 14, 2006:
Ann Hampton Callaway Swings Blues Alley
Showmanship is a rare commodity in the jazz world today. Too many performers
believe it contradicts true artistry. In some cases they may be right. But
add a healthy dose of real talent and the two can offer a winning
combination. Throw in a bigger than life personality, a biting sense of
humor, and a powerful set of lungs and you have Ann Hampton Callaway, whose
Thursday night performance at Blues Alley landed somewhere between cabaret
camp and heartfelt musicianship. Successful in either mode--or perhaps by
blending the two--Callaway garnered a rare standing ovation from a
notoriously chair-bound crowd, earned in part by her willingness to let
loose and have fun.
Callaway opened the show with the first track on her latest release,
Swinging Away the Blues, and her ethic of entertainment became readily
apparent as she delivered this heavily swung, snappy tune with high energy
and infectious good humor. Callaway then introduced her band, pausing to
launch into a stand-up worthy monologue filled with self-deprecating humor,
political commentary, and a stream of one-liners. Where many of today's
artists seem to feel burdened by audience interaction, hamming it up in
order to knock audiences out of their stuck-to-the-seats attitudes is
clearly Callaway's raison d'etre--whether she accomplishes the task with
bawdy jokes or her vocal talents.
Staying in high-gear, Callaway jumped next into another crowd-pleasing romp,
the almost painfully accurate, self-reflective original titled "I'm Too
White to Sing the Blues Blues". Showcasing her wit and verbal acuity, this
tune could almost be offensive if it weren't so deftly handled, the at times
pointed social commentary softened by humor and an over-the-top delivery.
Still, enough thought provoking identity politics lies beneath the surface
of this tune to make you squirm in your seat while you grin.
Next Callaway took a sharp left turn into more sentimental territory to
delve into the ballad "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most", utilizing
her huge range to devastating effect. Here, a different picture began to
emerge, and it became clear that there are many parts to the Callaway
personality, and perhaps her most striking gift is the ability to blend them
and blur them, making a marvelously entertaining evening out of her
exploration of the American songbook's diversity.
Turning on her head yet again, Callaway followed this up with another
up-tempo tune titled, "Its Hip to Be Happy", the overwhelmingly positive
message of which would have seemed excessive if it weren't for Callaway's
decision to segue straight into another ballad, this time deliciously
twisting Cole Porter's "Its All Right With Me" into a paean for
one-night-stands that located disturbingly modern forms of alienation in
this classic tune. The highlight of the night, Callaway revealed her immense
vocal abilities and skill with arrangement, as well as the deeper pools
which lie beneath her boisterous exterior.
After lingering over Stephen Sondheim's "No One Is Alone" and a take on
Rodgers and Hart's "Blue Moon", Callaway then returned to her extrovert self
for a rapid fire rendition of "Lover Come Back to Me". Callaway then closed
the night by stepping behind the piano to improvise a tune made-up after
interviewing audience members about their personal lives--and getting
remarkably frank answers. Callaway tinkled away on the piano and threw out
one innuendo driven line after the next, eliciting audience guffaws left and
right as she carefully tread the line between jovial ribaldry and mocking
acerbity.
Referring to herself twice during the night as the "bondage ballad queen",
Callaway certainly earned the title, captivating her audience as much with
her capacity to bend and break audience expectations as her facility with
musical notes. Those who resist her stylistic excesses may find much
wanting, but give in, and you're guaranteed a satisfying ride.
SEPTEMBER 16, 2006:
"Singer/songwriter, composer, performer, lyricist and woman of many hats, Ann
Hampton Callaway, has definitely got the 'cool' factor down to a tee. On her
Telarc debut, "Blues in the Night," the full, soulful voice that welcomed
fans week after week on the popular TV sitcom, "The Nanny," dazzles and amazes. A tempting, sensual dozen of Callaway originals and jazz classics, "Blues in the Night" features the intricate and lively accompaniment of the Sherrie Maricle's Diva Jazz Orchestra, and the three-way collaboration of pianist Ted Rosenthal, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Lewis Nash. In fact, this CD even comes with
an artist guarantee: "This is the feistiest, gutsiest, most let-your-hair-down CD I've ever recorded" - or your money back... Well, the last part I added, but after marveling at the self-assured swagger of "Swinging Away the Blues," the smooth rendition of "Blue Moon" and the 'scat-astrophic' groove of "Lover Come Back to Me," I'm betting money spent on this gem is cash well spent."
THE CELEBRITY CAFE - Reviewer: C. Lizaire
SEPTEMBER 15 2006:
Telarc Releases Ann Hampton Callaway Debut Album In SACD Surround Sound
"Telarc's latest Surround Sound SACDs feature actress, singer and songwiter
Ann Hampton Callaway and the Diva Jazz Orchestra with Blues In The Night and
the Soprano Christine Brewer and Donald Runnicles conduting the Atlanta
Symphony Orchestra performing compositions by Wagner and Strauss. As is
usually the case these days, both of these new Telarc Surround Sound SACDs
are "day and date" releases - with both the Surround Sound SACD and the CD
Audio edition of the new album being released on the same day.
Telarc also has plans to release two Surround Sound SACDs in September by Al
Di Meola and Paavo Jarvi conducting the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
followed by a new Surround Sound SACD in October from Erich Kunzel
conducting the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. Here's more on the new Telarc SACD
releases.
Blues In The Night
Ann Hampton Callaway
SACD Surround Sound/SACD Stereo/CD Audio
(Telarc SACD-63641)
Blues In The Night is the Ann Hampton Callaway's debut album on Telarc.
Callaway is an actress, songwriter and singer who is probably best known as
the songwriter of the Theme to the TV Series "The Nanny" as well as tunes
for Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross and Celine Dion. The album features a mix
of familiar classics and some original material written by the singer. On
the album she is backed by a rhythmn section of Ted Rosenthal, Christian
McBride and Lewis Nash as well as guest artists including her sister
vocalist Liz Callaway, guitarist David Gilmore and Sherrie Maricle and the
"all-female" Diva Jazz Orchestra.
Callaway describes the album by saying that "This is the feistiest,
gutsiest, most let-your-hair-down (album) I've ever recorded. There are
quiet and soothing moments, and there are moments when I wail. The recording
expresses the full range of who I am. Of all my recordings, it comes closest
to a live concert."
Blues In The Night is a new direct to Direct Steam Digital (DSD) recording
made at Avatar Studios in New York on February 13 - 15, 2006. The session
was recorded to a Sonoma DSD Workstation with a Genex DSD Hard Disk
Recorder, EMM Labs Meitner Mk IV DSD Converters with monitoring done on a
Lipinski L-707 5.1 Surround Sound Speaker System using the EMM Labs Meitner
Switchman II Monitor Controller. The album was produced by Ann Hampton
Callaway and Elaine Martone, and recorded, engineered and mastered by
Michael Bishop. The SACD was made by Sony DADC at their Terre Haute, Indiana
Hybrid SACD replication line.
Listening to the SACD Surround Sound layer of the album, you find that it is
a combination of songs performed with Callaway and her trio as well as songs
performed in full big band style with the Diva Jazz Orchestra. While the
album suggests that it is a "blues" album, Callaway is very energetic and
upbeat throughout. So while some of the songs are of the blues, her
performance is not. Sonically the album is a excellent. Engineer Michael
Bishop makes full use of the sonic tools at his disposal here. Swingin' Away
The Blues (Track 1) launches the album with a very high energy swing
performance from the band and full use of the Surround Sound field. Stormy
Weather/When The Sun Comes Out (Track 5) features a wonderful Bass solo and
then introduces the balance of the trio followed by vocals by both Ann
Hampton Callaway and her sister Liz Callaway. On It's All Right With Me
(Track 9), the Surround Sound mix places the vocals and primary instruments
up front and uses the Surround Channels for the drum brushes in an
interesting approach to mixing. There are other treats as well here, but the
bottom line is that this is another excellent Telarc Surround Sound SACD
release that music fans are bound to enjoy."
HIGH FIDELITY REVIEW - SACD News Story
SEPTEMBER 28, 2006 EDITION GAY CHICAGO MAGAZINE
OCTOBER 2006 EDITION CABARET SCENES:
"The label may be new to her, but what's on the disc is more of the musical
magic Ann Hampton Callaway seems to create with effortless ease. Mixing some
of her own compositions with a healthy dose of well-known tunes, Callaway
and her dynamic musicians and arrangers serve up a tempting collection of
sultry, sexy, sensitive and stirring musical segments that find her in
excellent voice on a bright and crisp recording.
With the highly charged blast of brass in Tommy Newsome's grand big band
arrangement of Callaway's Swingin' Away the Blues that opens the set,
Callaway and company segue from the broad, jumpin' jive of the opening track
and Lover Come Back to Me to a white-hot take on Blue Moon, complete with
Lorenz Hart's rarely heard fabulous opening verse, to Callaway's riotous The
I'm-Too-White-To-Sing-The-Blues Blues to her heartfelt Spring Can Really
Hang You Up the Most to her electrifying pairing with sister Liz Callaway on
Stormy Weather/When the Sun Comes Out.
With her husky alto and her ability to float her way up the scales for some
high-reaching notes as well, Callaway settles into a song with a natural
ease that makes it seem as though it may have been written just for her. In
some cases, they were, but even on something as often recorded as The Glory
of Love or No One Is Alone, Callaway approaches each with a unique ear and
finds a way to create a newness in each. Listen to the smoky seduction of
her slowed down It's All Right With Me and the angry snarl on the title
track, and you can hear her creative juices flowing. And those juices pour
forth throughout this entire album."
(****)
GAY CHICAGO MAGAZINE/CABARET SCENES - Jeff Rossen
SEPTEMBER 8, 2006:
"When the mood is relatively subdued, as on "Willow Weep for Me," "It's All
Right With Me" and "No One Is Alone," Callaway reveals her affinity for blue
balladry in subtle and affecting ways -- benefiting all the while from the
inspired support of pianist Ted Rosenthal, bassist Christian McBride and
drummer Lewis Nash, among others."
THE WASHINGTON POST - Mike Joyce
SEPTEMBER 8, 2006:
Callaway Returns As A One-Woman Big Band
"Without having done a formal survey, I would bet that most long-time fans
of the singer (and occasional pianist) Ann Hampton Callaway first grew to
love her because of what she could do with tender, intimate ballads like "Time
After Time" and "Lush Life."
During the 15 years or so that I have been listening to her, however, Ms.
Calloway has grown increasingly extroverted. The bulk of her act is
comprised of wild, up-tempo blasters and extravagant scat features - even
with just a trio behind her (Ted Rosenthal on piano, Jay Leonhart on bass,
and Victor Lewis on drums), she has become, in essence, a one-woman big
band."
Click here to read Will Friedwald's online review in The New York Sun of Ann's Thursday night show at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola.
NEW YORK TIMES RAVE - PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 8, 2006:
Her Untwisted Heart: Keeping on the Sunny, Swingy Side
"Ann Hampton Callaway is a good soul. Only someone resolutely on the side of the angels would write and sing a song like “Hip to Be Happy,” her jazzy rallying cry for the power of positive thinking, and really mean it. The song, which Ms. Callaway swung without a smidgen of irony at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola on Wednesday night, might be described as an untwisted “Twisted,” in the way it redirects the idiom of that Lambert, Hendricks and Ross standard away from neurosis and toward sweetness and light: “It’s hip to be happy/To give life a big hello/It’s hip to be happy/To say yes when the world says no.”
“Hip to Be Happy” and an equally tidy, well-scrubbed original, “Swingin’ Away the Blues,” are included on Ms. Callaway’s new album, “Blues in the Night” (Telarc). She performed both with gusto at Wednesday’s late show, accompanied by Ted Rosenthal on piano, Jay Leonhart on bass and Victor Lewis on drums.
The album is another step in Ms. Callaway’s evolution from a polite piano bar entertainer improvising songs around audience suggestions to a pop-jazz powerhouse, with the emphasis on jazz: jazz that wears a smile button, one might add. Along the way Ms. Callaway has let go of a certain refinement to tap into the physical reserves of her phenomenal voice, which rivals that of the young Cleo Laine in its flexibility, range and tonal palette.
In the old days Ms. Callaway’s emotional signature was a mood of demure yearning and heartbreak leavened by the clever wit of her on-the-spot improvisations. That delicate sensitivity has been replaced by a wholesome self-assertion that becomes more convincing the more she forsakes beautiful sounds to belt aggressively.
A high point of her show was a speedy version of “Lover Come Back to Me,” in which she interpolated sustained high-voltage scat passages without a trace of discomfort. It was exceeded by a show-stopping rendition of her new album’s title song that grew larger and larger until it nearly burst at the seams.
Performances continue through Sunday at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, 60th Street and Broadway, (212) 258-9595.
THE NEW YORK TIMES - Stephen Holden
SEPTEMBER 5, 2006:
"Experience, combined with artistic essentials including gorgeous tone and infectious rhythmic momentum, are what distinguish a vocal wannabe from a heavyweight. Ann Hampton Callaway has applied herself to the craft of singing jazz and popular standards for some two decades now –- she’s as polished a vocalist as the music is going to find. While still in the bloom of her voice, Callaway also brings a seasoned expressive approach to a song that sets her apart from the up-and-comers crowding the vocal market, singers whose youth often betrays them. On Blues in the Night Callaway surrounds herself with first-class players who reflect her own musicianly skills, among them pianist Ted Rosenthal, bassist Christian McBride, and drummers Lewis Nash and Sherrie Maricle. If Hampton is in her element caressing Great American Songbook masterworks (“Willow Weep for Me,” “Blues in the Night,” “Blue Moon”) she’s equally adept at delivering her own in-the-tradition songs, which capture her sharp sense of humor (”The I'm-Too-White-to-Sing-the-Blues Blues”, “Hip to Be Happy”). On a roll when it comes to recent recordings, Blues in the Night continues this marvelous singer’s winning streak."
BARNES & NOBLE - Steve Futterman
SEPTEMBER 1, 2006:
"Few can own a song the way Calloway does on her first Telarc disc. Her Broadway-tested, cabaret-tempered and blues-infused voice is right at home just about anywhere it wants to be. Working at times with the all-female Diva Jazz Orchestra as well as a small group anchored by bassist Christian McBride and pianist Ted Rosenthal, Calloway has everything from Bessie Smith to Barbra Streisand covered. You'll never hear "Blue Moon," "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" or the show-stopping "Blues in the Night" the same way again. Calloway's own positive-thinking style of songwriting rears its upbeat head on three tracks, with her humor saving them from the saccharine — barely. Still, to hear that alto turn into a positively burning soprano — there's nothing quite like it."
- LA DAILY NEWS - Steven Rosenberg, Staff Writer
AUGUST 29, 2006:
"Ann Hampton Callaway performed here twice last year—at the Ella Fitzgerald Music Festival in April with the CNU big band and at the Granby Theater in November, fronting a piano trio. She knocked the audience out both times, and over the course of the two concerts demonstrated her impressive vocal range and the breadth of her musical influences and interests.
Her new album, Blues in the Night, succeeds in the same manner, mixing big band tracks featuring Diva, the all-woman big band, trio tracks starring longtime accompanist Ted Rosenthal on piano with Christian McBride and Lewis Nash laying down the rhythm, and variations on those two lineups. It’s as close to the eclectic setlists Callaway employs in concert as any of her recordings have come. And like those live shows, the CD works very well.
There are three AHC originals among the twelve cuts. The opening “Swingin’ Away the Blues” stars the Diva girls blowing hot on a smokin’ Tommy Newsom arrangement while Ann lays out her upbeat philosophy of life: “Whatever happens from day to day/Happiness is always just a song away.” She further expounds in the same philosophical direction on “Hip to be Happy,” a vocalese exercise over spare bass & drum accompaniment, noting, “Pain's not a vocation/Forget the abyss and follow your bliss…It's hip to be happy/To say yes when the world says no.”
Her third composition is a sassy and brassy song that brought down both houses here last year, “The I’m-Too-White-to-Sing-the Blues Blues,” with the Divas lifting up the diva’s “can’t get the blues” lament and mouth-instrument solo with bawdy saxophone and screaming trumpets.
Though she is an accomplished songwriter as evidenced by the tuneful triumvirate included here, Callaway told me last fall that she “would never want to do only my own stuff. I want to keep singing these great songs because I believe they are timeless and I connect with them so powerfully.”
When she pulls pages from the Great American Songbook, you can hear exactly what she means:
“Willow Weep for Me” is sensuously seductive; “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most” is absolutely gorgeous, with Callaway zeroing in on the song’s lyrical essence and melodic beauty while a pair of horns augment the basic trio; “The Glory of Love” swings gently through “the story of, the glory of…”
Ann’s Broadway-starring sister Liz helps out on a medley of “Stormy Weather/When the Sun Comes Out.” The two blend well, juxtaposing Ann’s deep, from-the-gut emotional delivery with Liz’s lighter, higher-pitched cabaret style. Cole Porter’s “Its All Right with Me” is presented as a beautifully laidback ballad, while “Lover Come Back to Me” races through an uptempo Tommy Newsom arrangement.
Singers with Ann Hampton Callaway’s natural abilities (she has a three-and-a-half octave range) usually find it hard to resist showing off. It’s OK to flaunt your talents in a live concert setting, as long as you know when to pull back, but the histrionics just don’t work as well on record. Fortunately, Ann keeps the vocal showboating in check for most of this outing, only taking it too far over the top on “Blue Moon.” She’s got the goods, but is musically intelligent enough to use her amazing voice in the service of the songs, impressing with the melodies and meanings instead of wailing gratuitously like a Patti Labelle or Whitney Houston.
On Stephen Sondheim’s beautiful “No One is Alone,” she becomes one with the lyric, proving she knows when less is more. But on “Blues in the Night,” she lets out all the stops, milking every ounce of belted-out bluesiness, gospel grit and jazz jive out of this well worn classic, conjuring up memories of the greats who’ve sung it before while claiming it as her own. It’s a powerful climax to a potent recording."
PORTFOLIO WEEKLY - Singin' Away the Blues" By Jim Newsom
AUG. 29, 2006:
"Singer/songwriter Ann Hampton Callaway moves further into the jazz realm with the release of Blues in the Night, her debut CD for Telarc. Composer of the theme to the hit tv show, The Nanny, as well as songs for Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross and Celine Dion, Callaway has a long list of credits as composer, performer, actress, lyricist, arranger and educator, as well as the Tony-nominated, starring role in Swing! on Broadway. On September 6-10, Callaway will celebrate the new release with a run at Dizzy’s at Frederick Rose Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Blues in the Night offers a 12-track collection of songbook standards, jazz classics and Callaway’s trademark original tunes, backed on four tracks by Sherrie Maricle’s Diva Jazz Orchestra, on the rest by a core trio of Ted Rosenthal on piano, Christian McBride on bass and Lewis Nash on drums, with guest artists Anat Cohen (tenor sax), David Gilmore (guitar) and Jamie Dauber (trumpet); arrangements were provided by Tommy Newsom, Matt Gatingub, Bill Mays, and of course Callaway herself. “This is the feistiest, gutsiest, most let-your-hair-down CD I’ve ever recorded,” says Calloway. “The recording expresses the full range of who I am. Of all my recordings, it comes the closest to a live concert.” Callaway first heard the Diva Jazz Orchestra on CD, and first collaborated with the all-female ensemble at Lincoln Center’s 2005 Women in Jazz Festival, followed by an extended gig at the Blue Note. “Having spent so long as a solo artist, I find a great artistic camaraderie singing with orchestras and big bands,” says Callaway.
Overall this is Callaway’s most successful jazz venture on record to date. She’s most convincing on ballads where she seems to sing more from the heart, more soulful if not really swinging, giving more meaning to the lyrics on such tracks as “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most” and particularly her slower-than-standard rendition of “It’s Alright With Me.” The latter, with Bill Mays arrangement reharmonized with minor undertones, is wistful, showing more dynamic range than most tracks where Callaway’s theatrical bent on at times overpowers feeling. “Spring…” is more restrained than impassioned, Christian McBride swinging more than Callaway, yet her elongated phrases nevertheless pull in the listener.
And the Diva Orchestra’s great groove really pulls Callaway through the up-tempo tracks. Her original “Swinging Away the Blues” is a snappy opening of “an uplifting celebration” that Callaway hoped to create with this recording. This tune was arranged by Tommy Newsom, as was “Lover Come Back to Me,” featuring Callaway’s facile scatting, her high endings recalling Diane Schur; Rosenthal, Maricle and the band really cook here.
The “blues” theme is further represented by the title track as well as “Blue Moon” and “Willow Weep for Me.” “Blues in the Night” and “Blue Moon” are perhaps the a tad too theatrical and overstated but Callaway pulls it off with her bluesy inflections and phrasings, the title tune coming off as a blue march while “Blue Moon” has a Lena Horne scat and pop sensibility that could take the prize on American Idol. With just the trio, “Willow Weep for Me” may be the bluest track of all, Callaway’s classical training not far below the surface. Stephen Sondheim’s “No One Is Alone” further exudes a classical gloss while Callaway swings hardest on the closing tune, “The Glory of Love.”
Two more originals offer the hip lyrics that endear Callaway to her live audiences. “The I’m-Too-White-to-Sing-the-Blues Blues” with Rosenthal and the orchestra features a great line of hard swinging horns. On “Hip to be Happy,” Calloway is backed only by Nash and a heavily syncopated line from McBride—while she sits back, the bassist pushes the rhythm ahead.
A special treat is Callaway’s duet with sister Liz Callaway on the Harold Arlen medley “Stormy Weather/When the Sun Comes Out,” originally arranged for Ann’s role in Swing! Together they forge an emotionally-charged partnership.
Despite its title, Blues in the Night is not really a blues recording, nor was that Callaway’s intent. She notes, “it became clear to me that the real subject at hand was happiness: how we seek it, find it, lose it and try to get it back.” And indeed, it is Ann Hampton Callaway’s natural zest as well as her experience in theater and cabaret that really take away the “Blues in the Night” and leave one feeling “Hip to Be Happy.” Mostly it is hip to be Ann Hampton Callaway, or at least a part of her audience.
Ann Hampton Callaway will be joined by pianist Ted Rosenthal, bassist Jay Leonhardt, and drummer Victor Lewis at Dizzy’s, Jazz at Lincoln Center, September 6-10 (shows at 7:30/9:30 pm; 11:30 pm show Saturday and Sunday); reservations at 212-258-9595 or www.jalc.org. The celebration moves south to Washington, DC on September 14th for a one-nighter at Blues Alley (www.bluesalley.com). See www.annhamptoncallaway.com for full tour information. Vicky Mountain is a Twin Cities vocalist and instructor at the MacPhail Center for Music (visit www.vickymountain.com)"
JAZZ POLICE -
Contributed by Vicky Mountain and Andrea Canter, Contributing Editor
August 2006:
Ann Hampton Callaway - Blues In The Night
"Ann sings with a lot of expression as evidenced on the title track. The program consists of 12 blues songs but nothing that is sad or whining. Callaway is happy and upbeat, even electrifying on "Lover Come Back To Me" with some great scatting. The band behind her ranges from 2 pieces to the Diva Jazz Orchestra led by drummer Sherrie Maricle. Christian McBride (b), Lewis Nash (d) and Ted Rosenthal (p) highlight the smaller ensembles. The harmonizing with Liz Callaway is excellent on "When the Sun Comes Out" and Ann adds some welcoming secondary vocals on several other tracks as well. She has a lot of soul. There is a lot to enjoy here and we certainly did!"
O’S PLACE JAZZ
AUGUST 2006
“She's that rarity, these days, the real thing in her chosen calling.”
BUFFALO NEWS
AUGUST 2006
“From the first chords struck by the Diva Jazz Orchestra on this disc, listeners know that they are off on an invigorating swingin' jazz-y big band ride with this superlative singer. On this 12-track disc, Callaway mixes some of her original material with classics such as "Blue Moon," "It's All Right By Me," and, of course, the song from Mercer and Arlen that gives the disc its name. In each song, Callaway's robust, smoke-y voice and vocal stylings seem to cast even the most well-known song in anew.
For instance, in "It's All Right With Me," one hears not only melancholy resignation but also a sort of soaring inner strength. When singing Sondheim's "No One is Alone," Callaway offers one of her most straight-forward, traditional interpretations, but when combined with the original orchestration (written by Bill Mays in collaboration with Callaway), there is a wonderful adult urgency to the number. Equally grand are her renditions of "Blue Moon" and "Lover Come Back to Me." For a rousing combination of "Stormy Weather" and "When the Sun Comes Out," Callaway is joined by her sister Liz, and as always their voices, when combined, are thrilling.
As terrific as her renditions of the classics are, the hidden gems of Callaway's own compositions are equally delightful. How can one not respond with a smile to this title? "The I'm-Too-White-To-Sing-The-Blues Blues," which includes the following lyric:
"Sometimes when I'm lonely
I think I've got my chance
I try to sing St. Louis Blues
to my cat and my house plants
My cat gets catatonic
My violets start to shrink
My ivy starts to climb the wall
and it's time to pour a drink."
You might think that the Blues are simply about being sad and there is more than ample melancholy to be found on "Blues." Overall though, listeners will come away feeling exhilarated by this exuberant collection of songs.”
BROADWAYWORLD.COM - NOW PLAYING by Andy Propst
AUGUST 2006
Don't worry. When Ann Hampton Callaway sings about the blues, there's plenty to be happy about. Sure, she can vent and lament with a convincing and powerful sob in her voice. However, she does it while projecting an underlying sense of perspective, implying that she knows, "this, too, shall pass." The intelligence and hipness that are part of her persona make "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" a natural fit, with its lyrics that are both literate and coolly sophisticated. That Tommy Wolf/ Fran Landesman gem was intended for, but cut from, the score of the 1959 musical The Nervous Set, a fate to which Ann can relate: a number she wrote, "Hip to Be Happy," was meant for Swing!, the Broadway show she was in, and it's a joy to have on this CD. Also once in the plan for Swing! and resurrected here is a medley of two classic Harold Arlen/ Ted Koehler torch songs, "Stormy Weather" and "When The Sun Comes Out." On this back-and-forth meshing, continuing what's become an anticipated tradition, Ann is joined by sister Liz Callaway. As always, they're great to hear together, and the duetted big ending packs a big punch.
As you might assume, the album gets its title and inspiration from Ann's experience singing another famous Arlen melody that was in Swing!. This new version of "Blues in the Night" is one she's been growing into in concerts, a showcase for both her dramatic skills and the power and range of her voice. It's one of four selections backed by The Diva Jazz Orchestra, an all-female 14-member ensemble. They also appear on "Lover, Come Back to Me," the 78-year-old standard, and two more originals (she calls them "Ann-dards") that are both cool and very entertaining. They are "Swingin' Away the Blues" and the comical, self-deprecating "The I'm-Too-White-to-Sing-the-Blues Blues." On the other cuts, she's accompanied by top jazz men: Ted Rosenthal (piano), Christian McBride (bass), Lewis Nash (drums) and David Gilmore (guitar), with several different arrangers.
With her luscious and strong voice and her musicianly control, she need make no compromises; Ann can and does sing with force and flair. She has a whale of a wail when she chooses to let go. That happens more often here than on her earlier CDs. She has always been particular good at expressing empathy, making a strong and direct heart-to-open-heart connection with a sincere ballad. Recording something by Stephen Sondheim for the first time, she delivers a moving and finely shaded reading of "No One Is Alone," finding her own nuances. It's an especially satisfying track.
Ann will be performing material from this CD at Lincoln Center (Dizzy's Club) September 6th through 10th and at Tower Records on the 13th at 6 p.m. She also has a busy touring schedule.
TALKINBROADWAY.COM - Sound Advice by Rob Lester
"The classic songs on this album stay true to their original vision, yet are unique and soulful enough to make you reach for the 'repeat' button: The title track is a foot-stomping show-stopper, for example, while the overplayed and often underwhelming 'Blues Moon' has a sexy 6/8 groove and feisty attitude to boot." KEYBOARD
“This is a highly recommended jazz vocals CD. It comes alive with feeling, and intelligence! There is not a wasted note anywhere! Each performer is in top form, and this is a delightful collection to listen to. Get a copy for yourself and a friend. Well worth your time!” JAZZREVIEW.COM
“…frisky and fun, yet intimate and introspective – truly offers something for everyone. Really Strong Album!!” THE CHRONICLE
“She imbues most of these songs with a smoldering, torchy quality that brings new energy to old material, and her new songs stand up very nicely next to the established standards. Highly recommended.” ALL MUSIC GUIDE
"Your emotions will fall from your eyes when the first spin takes off into your heart from the vocals of Ann Hampton Callaway and her 'Blues in the Night...This disk is hot and divinely stimulating!" EJAZZNEWS.COM
