Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Dana Lauren: It's You or No One

439

Dana Lauren: It's You or No One

By

View read count
Track review of "On The Sunny Side of the Street"

Dana Lauren: It's You or No One
Vocalist Dana Lauren has a beautifully balanced alto voice that is pliant and malleable, one well suited for jazz. It's You or No One (Self Produced, 2010) was the singer's well-received debut, a smart collection of standards rendered well by top-notch musicians. Lauren sings inside and outside the box, straight-ahead and sideways with equal intensity and sensitivity. She is also effective in small spaces.

In a minimalist trend that echoes Lawrence Lebo's "less-is-more" approach, Lauren retires her band, bringing in bassist Christian McBride for a duet on the 1930 McHugh/Fields show tune, "On the Sunny Side of the Street." After opening with a tempo-perfect introductory bass vamp, McBride and Lauren both chase the beat—sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, but always swinging. Lauren is confidently playful and coquettish in her phrasing, obviously having fun with this old tune. McBride takes a solo jaunt, proving that all that's needed for a band may be a bass, returning for the duet coda.

"Gold dust at my feet," indeed.

Personnel

Dana Lauren
vocals

Dana Lauren: vocals; Christian McBride: bass.

Album information

Title: It's You or No One | Year Released: 2011 | Record Label: Self Produced

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.