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Judy Wexler: Back to the Garden
by Richard J Salvucci
Man, if you can pick a tougher project to sell to an aging Boomer than Judy Wexler's Back to the Garden, then you will have to say what it might be. For a lot of the Swinging and Breathing Elderly, this music is intensely personal. Not just where were you, or who were you with? But what were you doing? And most of all, why? Not everyone was a protester or a demonstrator, much less a hippie. Not everyone made ...
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by Nicholas F. Mondello
A glance at the tracks on this album might make one think that it is a well-selected gathering of '60s message tunes from compilation stalwart, Rhino Records. That not being the case, rest assured that Back to the Garden presents those iconic Pop selections so incredibly re- imagined that what we experience could easily be considered “new selections." Judy Wexler--petite in stature, but tremendously talented and agile in artistry--and her cadre of LA's best, delivers her finest performance ...
read moreJudy Wexler: Crowded Heart
by Dan Bilawsky
For her fifth album, Judy Wexler has embraced a concept that's oddly foreign in the jazz vocal realm. Instead of walking her way down the all-too-familiar avenues for singers—classic Broadway-cum-jazz material, canonical works written by revered jazz figures, pop tunes reshaped with harmonic facelifts, self-penned originals—she takes the road less traveled by focusing on the work of jazz composers thriving in the present. In doing so she magnifies the importance of these artists, highlights material worthy of greater attention, and ...
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by Nicholas F. Mondello
"Tribute," “re-imagined," “remembered," “Great American Songbook." You won't see or hear those words anywhere on Crowded Heart, Judy Wexler's fifth and best effort to date. What you will hear are 10 sublime cuts from some of the finest composers and lyricists in the game. Here Wexler revels in songs where romance and all of its kaleidoscopic intersections are the order of the day. “Circus Life," the opener, is a samba with Wexler spinning the tale of life's ...
read moreJudy Wexler: What I See
by Florence Wetzel
One of the deepest relationships in jazz blossomed on the West Coast in the 1950s, when singer June Christy and arranger Pete Rugolo combined their gifts on numerous albums. Christy supplied the voice and the heart, which Rugolo set off to perfection with exquisite, often surprising arrangements. The deep understanding between the two artists was particularly evident in their choice of songs; both had an eye for the unusual and the neglected, as well as lyrics that conveyed emotions of ...
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by C. Michael Bailey
Vocalist Judy Wexler has already garnered much attention among the All About Jazz family of critics, having been covered by the likes of colleagues Dan Bilawsky and Nicholas F. Mondello. They both remark on the breadth of Wexler's repertoire, which is impressive. Rather than browbeating us with one more collection of songs inhabiting Scott Yanow's moratorium list from his 2008 compendium, The Jazz Singers: The Ultimate Guide (Backbeat Books), Wexler seeks out less heard songs to nudge to the forefront ...
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by Nicholas F. Mondello
When they excavated the world-famous La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles, scientists discovered an other-worldly array of fossilized treasures. Who would have thought that, millennia ago, in the middle of Tinseltown, saber-toothed tigers and mammoths were sashaying down Rodeo Drive? In an analogous way, What I See from Judy Wexler yields surprisingly terrific finds, primarily from material that has been available right in front but overlooked. A very fine vocal talent also surfaces.With this, her fourth CD, ...
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