No One Ever Tells You / Amy Cervini

Amy Cervini's new recording, No One Ever Tells You, is her fifth, and it finds her at the center of the dilemma that jazz singers tend to confront these days. When she is singing a Sammy Cahn standard like "Please Be Kind", she sounds natural and swinging, backed by a classic piano trio. It's a fine performance, with her pliant, pleasantly-toned voice coming in atop a 1950s-styled bass/drum stroll then phrasing the mid-tempo swinger in a give-and-take style with piano as if she was Anita O'Day. And this is, of course, cool music in a great tradition. But Cervini is aware enough that O'Day and many other terrific singers already cut thousands of sides like this over the last 60 years. Which is why she's wise enough to explore a world of music beyond jazz standards or to apply new approaches to old tunes. An entire album in the style of "Please Be Kind" has simply been done to death, to death, to death. So, then, the challenge is to make a more varied collection cohere, connecting to the tradition without being "traditional".

Price: $23.98

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