Jazz Articles about Susannah McCorkle

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Susannah McCorkle: Ballad Essentials

by Dave Nathan
July 20, 2002

Susannah McCorkle is the latest entry in Concord Jazz's Ballad Essentials series, and certainly is one of the most exceptional entries. Few singers of our generation or any had a way with a set of lyrics as McCorkle. She has the ability to brighten and ventilate even the most tired of tunes. Fortunately her taste in selecting her play list was so impeccable, she could devote her singing efforts to her inimitable, highly personalized interpretations which, when coupled with unsurpassed ...

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Susannah McCorkle: Hearts And Minds

by Jim Santella
October 1, 2000

Susannah McCorkle put together her 15th Concord album as a program for both lovers and thinkers. But aren’t those two paradigms mutually exclusive? Where’s the common ground?

The singer’s convincing performance makes it clear that good songwriters provide some of both. Dave Frishberg’s “My Attorney Bernie" appeals to our insightful side, while George & Ira Gershwin’s “Our Love Is Here to Stay" reaches in that other direction. Similarly, many songs by Rodgers & Hammerstein or Van Heusen & Burke can ...

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Susannah McCorkle: Hearts & Minds

by Mathew Bahl
September 1, 2000

Listening to Hearts & Minds, it occurred to me that Susannah McCorkle very well might inherit the mantle of Champion of the Great American Songbook currently worn by Tony Bennett. Like Mr. Bennett, Ms. McCorkle believes that the standard repertoire is a living, breathing and, most importantly, ever expanding body of music that has something profound to say to adults in the 21st Century, and on Hearts & Minds, she makes a convincing argument for that position.

Hearts & Minds ...

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Susannah McCorkle: From Broken Hearts To Blue Skies

by Jim Santella
May 1, 1999

From a moody “laugh all your sorrows away" with its late night lounge setup, to “never saw things goin’ so right" with its energetic trumpet and alto saxophone interludes, Susannah McCorkle has put together another eclectic session from the American popular songbook. This is her seventeenth album, following From Broadway To Bebop and From Bessie To Brazil. A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in Italian literature, McCorkle studied languages in Mexico, France, Germany, and ...

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Susannah McCorkle: From Broken Hearts to Blue Skies

by Jack Bowers
April 1, 1999

Susannah McCorkle, who has been devoting her albums of late to the works of specific composers (Gershwin, Porter, Berlin), broadens the horizon on her 17th recording, exploring the many facets of love, happiness and heartbreak through the music and lyrics of writers as disparate as Strayhorn/Ellington, Django Reinhardt, Henry Mancini/Johnny Mercer, Antonio Carlos Jobim, David Shire/Richard Maltby Jr. and Jerome Kern/Buddy DeSylva. McCorkle has some good–natured fun with Dave Frishberg’s clever entreaty, “I Want to Be a Sideman” (sideperson?), pays ...

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Susannah McCorkle: Someone to Watch Over Me

by Jack Bowers
May 1, 1998

Having reviewed favorably Susannah McCorkle's seventh Concord recording, in which she ably interpreted more than a dozen of the wonderful songs of Irving Berlin, I can do no less for No. 8, an earnest tribute to the music of the immortal George Gershwin. Simply put, McCorkle is a singer who leaves scant room for complaint. Although I really wouldn't call her a Jazz singer in the truest sense of the phrase (she takes few liberties with a melody), McCorkle emotes ...

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Susannah McCorkle: Someone To Watch Over Me

by John Sharpe
May 1, 1998

Having already tackled the works of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and Johnny Mercer, McCorkle turns her attention to another great American composer, George Gershwin. One can't argue with the song selection, they are all classic standards, but this time out Susannah seems less than inspired. Perhaps the formula is wearing thin. Her voice, which has acquired a nice, husky bur over the years, is fine and is perfectly suited to the material. She is always been a fine lyric interpreter ...