RACHEL Z
Grace
Chesky
Read
the Jazzitude Review of Rachel Z/Everlasting
Through the course of her career, Rachel Z
has always managed to have it both ways. On the one hand,
her recorded work presented an accomplished piano stylist
with a gift for improvisation; on the other she marketed
herself with the savvy of a rock performer. That is hardly
surprising given her other gig as keyboardist to innovative
rock artist Peter Gabriel. Z managed to present the music
of Wayne Shorter and Joni Mitchell on successive albums
in a way that gave equal musical weight to each and which
matched its musical voice to its subject completely. On
Grace, her latest release and first for the Chesky
label, Rachel offers something new—vocals.
It may take time for Z’s vocal work
to grow on many listeners; some may never develop an ear
for it. At once tentative and searching yet infused with
an inner strength, they place Z in an odd territory. Is
she pop-jazz chanteuse or straightforward jazz musician?
Based on the evidence here, she is somewhere near the territory
once employed to great effect by Holly Cole, with shades
of pop singers like Kate Bush and Alanis Morisette, and
a helluva lot of piano chops. Overall, Rachel is a talented
pianist who has the ability to construct arrangements of
well-known tunes that are very different from their original
versions. Her original material is really pretty good, lyrics
and all, though they reveal their influences just as surely
as does the list of other songwriters whose material she
covers: U2, Kate Bush, Bjork, John Lennon. Certainly it
is to Z’s credit that her own sound is much more Kate
Bush than Norah Jones, but it remains to be seen how many
listeners are going to follow her pianistic flights of fancy.
As always, Rachel is backed up by a sensitive rhythm section
comprised of drummer Bobbie Rae and bassist Chris J. Luard.
Some pop listeners might misconstrue the understated musical
backing of the group as weakness, but instead the intimate
tone invites closer listening that helps win the repeated
listener over.
Not until the third track do we hear the classic
instrumental trio sound that Rachel has worked on her last
two discs. The group’s cover of U2’s “One”
starts with a tuned drum solo by Rae, then Z comes in with
the melodic statement. She solos briefly and interestingly,
followed by Luard. The trio then takes it out playing around
and through the melodic content of the song. Then it’s
back to two originals with vocals. The first, the title
track, is probably the best vocal number on the album, with
Z at times breaking free of her influences to assert what
sounds like a nascent unique voice. That’s followed
by “Pain,” which is a little too schizoid for
this listener. Rachel’s version of Kurt Cobain’s
“Come As You Are” is a thorough modern jazz
re-imagining of the song, and Rachel and the trio burn in
a way that should satisfy any critical traditionalist listener.
As a vocalist, Rachel definitely owes a debt
to Kate Bush, and she honors that debt with a cover of Bush’s
“This Woman’s Work” that works pretty
well, despite occasionally mimicking Bush’s vocal
mannerisms in a way that could be annoying to some listeners.
Still, it’s a sensitive and attractive reading that
melds nicely into Z’s final original, “Riot.”
She closes out with a well-realized instrumental version
of Bjork’s “Joga” and a vocal version
of John Lennon’s “Imagine” that seems
to try just a little too hard to come up with new melodic
and harmonic elements. Part of the song’s appeal is
its simplicity, and Rachel adds a few too many ornaments
to be taken seriously. That said, she still manages a nice
middle solo section that, taken on its own, is a really
nice performance.
Overall, the number of songs that work on
Grace greatly outnumber the two or three that aren’t
as well realized. Rachel’s sound here is an intriguing
mix of jazz and pop elements, and is a sound that not too
many others have. It should say a lot that one cannot say
with any degree of certainty what Rachel Z’s next
project will be like. That’s the mark of an artist
that is too busy creating to worry too much about what the
reception is like for any individual work. Grace is
a disc with broad appeal to those who like female singer/songwriters,
fans of innovative modern jazz piano trios, and some who
just like mellow music that has a mix of vocals and instrumentals.
Check it out—you might find yourself in the Rachel
Z fan club.
