[Dixielandjazz] Catherine Russell reviewed - Buffalo News, January 12, 2014

[Robert Ringwald]

Catherine Russell: Bring It Back (Jazz Village)
by Jeff Simon
Buffalo News, January 12, 2014
Woe betide anyone who can't respond -- at least a little -- to Catherine Russell.
She has the kind of primal jazz bloodlines that are all but unique: Daddy was Luis
Russell, the great arranger for Louis Armstrong. So when she ventures into wondrous
but little known corners of the Great American Songbook with arrangements that are
devilishly witty neo-swing by a 10-piece band, you're not hearing the amateur enthusiasms
of, say, Diana Krall and Elvis Costello in their weekend musicales. You're hearing
music and manner that no one can doubt is in her blood and it's full of wit and a
vocal sound like no one else's. Duke's "I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart" actually
sounds fraught with happiness. "Darktown Strutters Ball" turns into a honky-tonk
party tune her father's employer Louis might have enjoyed soloing on. On the rare
"Strange as It Seems," Fats Waller would be nothing but pleased. And "After the Lights
Go Down Low" has a whole different cast sung by a woman than it did sung by Al Hibbler.
As lovable as her discs almost always are.
-30


-Bob Ringwald K6YBV
www.ringwald.com
916/ 806-9551

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