Blessed & Bewitched

For those not in the know, Blessed & Bewitched is a deeply personal reflection of Vienna vocalist Maja Jaku's artistic spirit. Growing up immersed in the sounds of jazz with her trumpet player father, and later through studies with mentors at the Graz Conservatory — including Mark Murphy, Sheila Jordan, Andy Bey and Jay Clayton — Jaku's art evolved through her life-long devotion to the jazz legacy continuum.

With encouragement from drummer Johnathan Blake, Jaku assembled an extraordinary ensemble to mark this period of her path and recorded this, her fifth album, in New York City along with Blake, bassist Dezron Douglas, pianist Alan Bartuš, and trumpeter Michael Rodriguez. Co-producer/drummer Adrian Varady also performed on a track that he composed.

Jaku invites listeners into this set of five original songs and two classics, providing a journey through a space of reflection, connection, and emotional honesty.

This dutifully crafted and wholly embracing new recording opens on the sumptuously sculpted "The Witch" and the stridently delivered "I'm a Queen" and then we are gifted the veritably crystalline "Lonely Little Fox," the joyfully embodied "Blessing Will Come," the breathy beauty of "Never Let Me Go," the set rounding out on the playfully soulful "Rituals," closing on the smooth elegance of "Everything Must Change."