Waves: The Bossa Nova Session

Her smoky alto voice, perfectly suited for the bossa nova, gives Eden Atwood a natural edge. While she’s been thoroughly trained in the vocal arts, piano and the dramatic arts, Atwood requires no props to deliver her performance. It’s quite natural. Singing of life’s pleasures, she’s at home interpreting the works of Jobim and other sterling composers. In Atwood’s voice, you can see the same down-to-earth qualities that Tom Jobim saw in the young Ipanema woman’s physical persona when he spotted her somewhere in Brazil decades ago. Atwood interprets each bossa nova arrangement with a veteran’s flair: low and cool. Atwood isn’t the type of singer who has to shut her eyes, turn away from the audience, tense up methodically, and wring out phrases learned laboriously through many practice sessions spent memorizing variations on a theme to get her point across. It just flows naturally. Nothing in her delivery sounds prearranged. And the piano trio she works with here suits the occasion well. Atwood has surrounded herself with veterans. Appearances by Pete Christlieb and Anthony Wilson through several numbers add immeasurably to the album’s enchantment. Eden Atwood, the girl next door, interprets these tender scenes from life’s arsenal with genuine passion.