Daria

Strawberry Fields Forever

oa2 22129

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MUSIC REVIEW BY Bruce Crowther, Jazz Mostly

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With this album, Daria takes up a demanding challenge, because in common with many latterday composers of pop songs, John Lennon and Paul McCartney did not customarily follow the 32-bar AABA pattern for popular songs that has supplied so much material to the jazz repertoire. One result of this is that with only scattered exceptions the songs of the Beatles, for the most part composed by Lennon and McCartney, have not been widely used by jazz singers. Among those exceptions is Connie Evingson, who sings some of their songs on her albums Let It Be and All The Cats Join In (about which there is more in an earlier post). One result of a jazz artist drawing her repertoire from this source is the pleasing quality that many of the songs are familiar but not overdone in jazz circles. Among the most familiar are The Fool On The Hill and Can't Buy Me Love, by McCartney, and Strawberry Fields Forever by Lennon. Other songs heard here are Come Together, written by Lennon, after having failed to find the right material for a gubernatorial campaign song wanted by Timothy Leary, and his deeply introspective Julia, written in memory of his mother. There are also a few non-Beatles songs, including Daria's original, She's Going Home, inspired by Lennon and McCartney's She's Leaving Home. Some of the songs have undercurrents of sadness, others are light-hearted; Daria shows her respect for the mood of the originals, but throughout offers her own concepts, which display her affection for Latin music. Daria's vocal sound, creamily-rich and flowing, allied as it is to her ability to delve deeply in her interpretations, bring fresh life to songs that are, however hard it is to believe it, around half a century old. For this album, Daria has surrounded herself with leading Bay-area musicians, including, as her core rhythm team, Jonathan Alford, keyboards, Sam Bevan, bass, and Deszon Claiborne, drums. In addition to the trio there are brass, reed, percussion and string instruments that richly extend the tonal palette in a very agreeable manner.








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