Julia Danielle: Julia Danielle

Julia Danielle has been working hard on her craft. She grew up in the Chicago area, singing in the Campanella Children's Choir, winning the International Ella Fitzgerald Jazz Vocal Competition in 2022 and earning an undergraduate degree from DePaul University in 2023. She is on track to graduate with a master's in jazz studies from Juilliard in 2026. On Julia Danielle, her self-titled debut, she reveals her skills as a budding singer and arranger in a set of familiar standards, beginning with "Night and Day" and ending with "There Will Never Be Another You." She demonstrates a technique that is fluid, pitch that is on target, phrasing that has a gentle swing and a manner that is appealingly unpretentious. (Check the YouTube, bottom of this page.)

Danielle's program includes an attractive jazz-bolero version of the Gershwin brothers' "Embraceable You," performed with her expert and responsive combo: Chris Madsen on tenor saxophone, Joshua Achiron on guitar, Clark Sommers at the bass and Dana Hall on drums. From the outset, she foregrounds a light sound and a refined demeanor, offering occasional agréments, sensitive pitch substitutions and a smart coda that ends with a nice flourish. Her vocal arrangement of Billy Eckstine's "I Want to Talk About You"—beautifully sung by Mar Vilaseca , Alyssa Allgood, Andrew Dahan and Joe Labozetta—is similarly light and polite, bringing to mind the Chordettes' hit version of "Mr. Sandman" (Cadence Records, 1954 [single]).

This is a good album and Danielle is already a good singer. Nonetheless, the set does little to distinguish her from so many other good singers. Odds are, though, that a couple of years in New York and at Juilliard will take her down many new avenues, leading her to connect with lots of great musicians, young and old, to experience diverse approaches and get into some "good trouble," musically speaking.^* Julia Danielle shows us that she is ready to embark on such a journey.

^*Apologies to John Lewis (the civil rights activist, not John Lewis).