Sailing Home

5-STARS Texan vocalist Rosana Eckert has produced in this, her fourth album, a collection of personal, sweet, and amusing songs with diverse arrangements: New Orleans funk, bossa nova, sassy soul, romantic folk, Tex-Mex cumbia, and dreamy ballads. With one exception, she wrote the music and nearly all the lyrics, her husband and percussionist Gary Eckert and keyboardist Peter Eldridge contributing otherwise. The tune Waiting, with accordion, is akin to the charming European romantic comedy film scores of the early 1960s. The bossa Lovely Ever After has alto flute and guitar solos for tropical flavors. Lyrics honor her husband, her daughter, the guitarist Cory Christiansen, and a friend. Eckert sometimes scats. The album glows in warmth and nicely polished performances. A graduate of University of North Texas College of Music in classical theory and French horn performance, she later shifted to jazz for her master's and now is a jazz voice teacher there. With this whimsical album, her students have a very fine exemplar.