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Lorraine Feather: I Love You Guys
by Carl L. Hager
The great pianist and composer, Thelonious Monk, is credited with the remark that “writing about jazz is like dancing about architecture." But don't dash off and try to authenticate the quote. One, it'll just take you down a rabbit hole, and two, whether or not he ever actually uttered those words doesn't really matter. Because far too often, it's true. It's true to the extent that the offending scribe is violating a fundamental law: either he doesn't know ...
Continue ReadingLorraine Feather: Attachments
by C. Michael Bailey
First, there is “who exactly is Billie Jane Lee Lorraine Feather?" Well, she is the daughter of jazz writer and impresario Leonard Feather (1914 -1994) and Jane Feather, a former big-band singer and ex-roommate of Peggy Lee (ergo “Lee"). The Billie in Feather's name is her godmother, Billie Holiday, and the Jane, well that is obvious. The Lorraine part is from the Cliff Burwell (music) and Mitchell Parish (lyrics) 1928 standard, “Sweet Lorraine." That is quite a pedigree by any ...
Continue ReadingLorraine Feather: Attachments
by Dr. Judith Schlesinger
As expertly-crafted and enjoyable as all of her other recordings, Lorraine Feather's Attachments is her most raw and intimate CD to date. Here, she applies her famously incisive perception, sweet voice, and stunning lyrical gifts to a frank exploration of life's major emotional ties, describing how they can soothe, stretch, and break as they wind through our days on earth.Naturally these include romantic connections--whether missed, fulfilled, or simply imagined--but as usual, Feather vaults over the tired moon/June/spoon territory ...
Continue ReadingLorraine Feather: Attachments
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Let's get this out up front: Lorraine Feather is a collaborator extraordinaire. Before taking that down a darker path and picturing black op sites, duct tape, and stubbly- faced bad cats, let's spill: take a masterful wordsmith who's also a sublime vocal talent, surround her with highly intelligent soundscapes and wrap with some of L.A.'s usual suspects, and the result is Attachments--a superbly crafted and marvelously performed initiative.Feather's recent solo efforts, Tales of the Unusual (Jazzed Media, 2012) ...
Continue ReadingLorraine Feather
by Carl L. Hager
Like her contemporary Kurt Elling, Lorraine Feather is that rare jazz vocalist and lyricist who reinvents herself with every project. With the February 2012 release of Tales of the Unusual (Jazzed Media) comes a new self so different that casual fans may not recognize her at first. Some might feel challenged or mystified by these ambitious lyrical statements, but the seductive textures are certain to lure them into the eerie world where Feather embraces life's most entertainingly bizarre and aberrant ...
Continue ReadingLorraine Feather: Tales of the Unusual
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Be aware and beware from the get-go: Tales of the Unusual, from Grammy nominee Lorraine Feather, is indeed deep, dark and different. The Anne Rice-like black and white cover shot parlayed with the spooky title augur that what is to follow is a foray into a song-world of stories told inside-out and upside-down. The magic here is the marvelous--no, delicious--manner in which Feather, with incredible vocal skill, dynamic shading and inflection, maneuvers through her own lyric queendom. ...
Continue ReadingLorraine Feather: Tales of the Unusual
by C. Michael Bailey
Vocalist Lorraine Feather is first and foremost, a lyricist. The daughter of jazz writer, composer, and producer, Leonard Feather, she has released a mess of recordings, all of which feature finely crafted songs composed from the same brew that gave rise to Tippo, Mississippi's Mose Allison and St. Paul, Minnesota's Dave Frishberg. On Tales of the Unusual, the smart lyric writing, contemporary and current, passes for neither modern Country and Western nor old-time Tin Pan Alley, as ...
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