ERIN BOHEME
What Love Is
Concord
Read
the Jazzitude Review of Christan Scott/Rewind That
Read the Jazzitude Review
of Taylor Eigsti/Lucky To Be Me
If there were a jazz version of ‘American
Idol,” (dedicated to overall musicianship instead
of just singing) one can easily imagine Concord Records’
latest crop of young artists--Christian Scott, Taylor Eigsti,
and Erin Boheme--being the three finalists. And there isn’t
a singer on that popular program with the self-assuredness,
raw talent, and obvious affinity for music more sophisticated
than the normal fare among those in her age group (she’s
19) that Erin Boheme displays here. There are plenty of
singers who have been recording much longer and who are
much older who have not developed the sensitivity that she
demonstrates on her debut, What Love Is.
Boheme can also write, as the many original
collaborations on this disc attest. The opening track, “Someone
to Love” is a lovely slice of pop balladry that will
make comfortable listeners who approach jazz-tinged music
with some degree of anxiety. Labelmate Taylor Eigsti appears
on piano, as he frequently does throughout What Love
Is. Trumpeter Christian Scott is also heard on several
tracks, including the playful “One Night With Frank.”
Boheme cleverly works in quotes both lyric and melodic from
a variety of well-known Sinatra songs. It could easily have
become corny, and on some level it still is, slightly, but
Boheme so effortlessly strikes the right balance between
doe-
eyed
hero worship and flirtation that it works very well. “Let’s
Make the Most of a Beautiful Thing” features a lush
but subdued Corey Allen string arrangement and tasteful
piano support by David Foster.
The title track has a real rainy night, West
Coast vibe, with Scott’s trumpet providing a trace
of Chet Baker melancholy. It’s not only a really nice
song, but Boheme’s vocals are wonderfully mature.
She does ok with “Teach Me Tonight,” but it’s
not one of the stronger performances on this disc. For the
most part, Boheme is best singing her own songs. Her version
of Tracy Chapman’s “Give Me One Reason”
strips the song of its blues underpinnings, weakening it
considerably. On the other hand, her performance of her
own “Make You Happy” and “Anything,”
the latter with Joe LaBarbera on drums, is nothing short
of perfection.
Boheme does connect with a pair of cover songs
that feature Tom Scott blowing some inspired tenor sax.
“Let’s Do It” is sultry and full of tension
in all the right places, while her cover of Peggy Lee’s
“I Love Being Here With You” is a great match
of song and singer. Boheme offers an amalgam of Lee, Anita
O’Day, with maybe just a whiff of Blossom Dearie,
and the results are tasty indeed.
When someone shows promise as a singer, that
is one thing. When someone shows promise as a singer and
a songwriter, that is another. Based on the evidence on
What Love Is, Erin Boheme is going to be around
for awhile, and should be interesting to watch in the future.
In the meantime, this is a great CD that should have something
for both longtime jazz listeners and those who are more
familiar with the finalists on American Idol than they are
with great jazz vocalists of the past fifty years or so.
