Jazz Articles about Vanessa Perea

About Vanessa Perea

Album Review

Various Artists: Swinging In The Holidays

Read "Swinging In The Holidays" reviewed by Jim Trageser

by Jim Trageser
December 12, 2025

With a warm, wood-paneled vintage glow, a new Christmas collection inhabits the space formerly reserved for top-flight crooners like Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett: blending pop and jazz into comfort food for your ears. While few of the “next-gen" (as the album's publicity tag puts it) performers here will be known to those unfamiliar with the contemporary New York City scene, their chops are undeniable and the arrangements flattering to the performers' strengths.

Album Review

Champian Fulton: Flying High - Big Band Canaries Who Soared

Read "Flying High - Big Band Canaries Who Soared" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
July 10, 2024

If memory serves, Woody Herman was once quoted as saying “it's tough to be a canary," or words to that effect. “Canary" of course, was just one of the many euphemisms used for female big band singers in the 1930s and 1940s. Herman's pointed observation was spot on. He thought, correctly, that most female singers were being evaluated--by male critics, of course--on their physical attributes primarily, not on their vocal prowess. This is no place to go into detail, but ...