Blessed & Bewitched

For many American listeners, Blessed & Bewitched will be an introduction to Maja Jaku, a Kosovo-born singer who has already built a strong reputation in Europe. She brings a voice that can be powerful and direct, yet she's just as comfortable pulling it back to a hushed intensity, shaping phrases carefully and letting the meaning of the lyrics come through. That sense of control traces back to a musical household — her father was a trumpet player — and to her studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz, where singers like Sheila Jordan, Mark Murphy, Andy Bey, and Jay Clayton took notice of her talent.

For this New York-recorded debut, Jaku put together a strong quartet featuring trumpeter Michael Rodriguez, pianist Alan Bartuš, bassist Dezron Douglas, and drummer Johnathan Blake. It's a band that listens closely, never crowding the singer or each other.

The album opener, "The Witch," sets the tone. Piano and bass ease in first, resonant and steady, with light brushwork flickering on the cymbals. When Maja Jaku enters, her voice settled in the middle register, warm and slightly smoky. She stretches words to draw out the emotion, sliding upward when she needs to and adding just a touch of vibrato at the ends of phrases. At times it feels almost spoken, as if she's letting the listener in on something private. Michael Rodriguez follows with a solo that's crystal clear, unforced, and as inviting as the vocal that precedes it.

The album moves between originals and two standards. "Never Let Me Go" and "Everything Must Change," are handled with restraint. "Never Let Me Go," first sung by Johnny Ace, unfolds at an unhurried pace, accentuating some words, stretching others and sometimes dropping to a near whisper. "Everything Must Change," written and originally recorded by Bernard Ighner on a Quincy Jones record, can lean toward melodrama, but so did the original. Jaku likes playing with the tempo and she lets silence carry as much weight as the notes.

Blessed & Bewitched is good at varying tempos, moving between ballads, mid-tempo pieces, and upbeat numbers like "I'm a Queen." Piano and bass set the groove, drums lean in with assured stick work. Jaku's delivery shifts too — more declarative, a clear "this is how it is." She scats here, loose but determined, and Rodriguez answers with a solo that's forceful yet precise, as if he already knows exactly where he's going. The bass walks with a woody, resonant tone, and Alan Bartuš keeps a rolling rhythm, left-hand chords grounding the tune while his right hand darts off in imaginative runs.

Rodriguez plays an open horn throughout the album, but on "Blessing Will Come" he switches to a mute, and the soft, focused tone matches perfectly with Jaku's soulful, gospel-inflected delivery. The song rides a repeated bass figure that's mixed high enough to really let the notes bloom. The tempo sits in a comfortable mid-range groove, and Jaku shapes her phrases with a near-percussive rhythmic instinct.

For a singer new to many American listeners, Maja Jaku makes a striking first impression. Her voice is powerful yet nuanced, and she's backed by a band that's sharp, responsive, and endlessly musical. Blessed & Bewitched doesn't shout — it captivates through the way Jaku inhabits every phrase, making each song feel personal and immediate. She sings as if in conversation, drawing the listener in, and that intimacy, paired with a band that knows exactly how to support her, makes the album impossible to ignore.