Carol Fredette: Everything In Time

Jazz vocalist Carol Fredette's singing is characterized as a clinic in singing with perfect diction. With a linguist's ear, Fredette concretely pronounces every word to every song she sings as if to commit them to platinum casts for use by International Bureau of Weights and Measures. Fredette accomplishes this not in some self-conscious way, but with a humor and grace that betrays a fully lived jazz life. This is further reflected in the breezy tone Everything in Time takes. Light latin jazz, humid islands, and secure mainstream treatments populate this fully realized collection.

Fredette's previous recording, Sings Dave Frishberg and Bob Dorough: Everything I Need (Brownstone, 1999) showed her a versatile and capable interpreter of these two modern vocal composers. She carries her amore for Dorough to the opening track of Everything in Time, "Without Rhyme or Reason." Fredette's conversational delivery provides delight, service with a smile and a wink. "I Wish I Knew" sports some nifty horn arrangements, incorporating teases from "If I Were a Bell." Fredette's Brazilian bent reveals itself in Cole Porter's "Dream Dancing" and Nikolay Rubanov's "Vivo Donhando (Dreamer)." Fredette's septet swings effortlessly through these pieces, trumpeter Barry Danielian and the saxophone tag-team of Aaron Heicke and Bob Malach.

"Last Night When We Were Young" and "The Way You Look Tonight" provide a stable standards fulcrum to the recital. They are given a relaxed treatment, the latter being played in 3/4 time. Fredette is particularly effective on these seasoned ballads. Her singing is reminiscent of a hip Julie Andrews (think a jazz Sound of Music or Mary Poppins). Everything in Time is a satisfying stroll with a songbird.