Natalie John: Unveiled (2010)

C. Michael Bailey

Senior Contributor since 1997

...wants to know if Gene Harris is playing "Summertime" in Heaven...

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Published: November 4, 2010

Listening to Natalie John's Unveiled is a jarring, almost alarming experience. It is comparable to a first listen to Tony Williams Tony Williams
1945 - 1997
drums 's Emergency (Polydor, 1969), or Miles Davis Miles Davis
1926 - 1991
trumpet on the verge, with his "Lost Quintet" (Chick Corea Chick Corea
b.1941
piano , Dave Holland Dave Holland
b.1946
bass , Jack DeJohnette Jack DeJohnette
b.1942
drums , and Wayne Shorter Wayne Shorter
b.1933
saxophone ), on the recently uncovered It's About That Time (Columbia, 2001). Those recordings presented music that was in-your-face on the blade edge of drastic change . A similar, though more diffuse trend is happening today in jazz vocals, and Natalie John has staked out a claim on her parcel of the expanding genre.

Rodgers and Hart's "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" appears harmless until played, beginning with Dominic Fallacaro Dominic Fallacaro

piano 's electric piano on the verge of too much gain and a militantly marching drum beat from Stuart Bidwell Stuart Bidwell
that has more in common with U2's "New Year's Day" than any 1939 show tune. This is not exactly your parent's version of this standard. John sings with a sardonic flair, perfectly aware that her interpretation is both brilliant and groundbreaking. Fallacaro delivers an acoustic piano solo that is both expansive and flowing, and traditional, but the coda returns to the iconoclastic reading at the song's beginning.

Joni Mitchell Joni Mitchell
b.1943
vocal 's "Hissing of Summer Lawns" never loses sight of it being Mitchell song, but John adds a spectral stare to the piece, buoyed again by the soft fuzziness of Fallacaro's electric piano.

John penned the rest of the disc's eight selections, her orchestral and modern writing coupled, most often, with Fallacaro. "Veils of Innocence" sounds more standard than the standard, given to flights of background vocal experimentation, but the real eyeopener is "Aphasia," an oddly timed cataclysm, with Fallacaro's electric piano and Travis Reuter Travis Reuter
's guitar simpatico in accompanying John's roaming, schizo-form melody. John and Reuter spar, giving way to a guitar solo out of a cutting contest between John McLaughlin John McLaughlin
b.1942
guitar and Shawn Lane Shawn Lane
1963 - 2003
guitar, electric in an opium dream. This is what exciting music is: challenging and eye opening.

Track Listing: I Didn't Know What time it Was; Veils of Innocence; Songs From a Greyhound Bus; Let Them Be; The Hissing of Summer Lawns; Aphasia; Before It Can Begin; Nothing Else.

Personnel: Natalie John: vocals; Dominic Fallacaro: keyboards; Aidan Carroll: bass; Stuart Bidwell: drums; Travis Reuter: guitar.

Record Label: Self Produced
Style: Modern Jazz