Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Cathi Walkup: Living in a Daydream

114

Cathi Walkup: Living in a Daydream

By

View read count
Cathi Walkup: Living in a Daydream
On her second album, San Francisco denizen Cathi Walkup offers a play list of standards and her original material. Walkup continues favors up and medium tempo material almost completely eschewing the ballad form. Even "Angel Eyes" is given a medium tempo presentation, with some fine Tal Farlow like guitar by Brad Buethe and subtle flugelhorn by Dmitry Matheny. The combos are unusual in that there's a piano on just one cut, as Walkup uses the guitar and vibes as her basic support.

Although her mature contralto is limited in range, Walkup makes excellent use of the tools she has. Her renditions are filled with surprises, taking interesting liberties with the melodies. But she uses this technique in a disciplined manner keeping is just that, an effective interpretative technique rather than affectation. Hear her drop down at the end of the phrase rather than taking it up as one would expect on such tunes as "Nice Work If You Can Get It". Her style is enhanced by the support she gets from her musicians. On Nice Work it's Gerry Grosz's vibes giving just the right emphasis to Walkup's vocal musings. Walkup is at home with Vocalese using it to good effect on Thelonious Monk/Jon Hendricks' Bop opus "I Mean You" with "That" slipped in for "You" here. Of her originals, I found the title tune the most engaging. It's a buoyant, hopeful tune that moves right along with significant help from Harvey Robb's tenor.

Walkup is one of a group of very good female jazz singers who live and work in San Francisco. Five of them got together to cut an album called Quintessential which is also available through the web sites in the header to this review. As for this all Walkup affair, it demonstrates how good the results can be when there is a faultless match between singer, songs and sidemen. This album is truly entertaining and is highly recommended. Visit Cathi at her web site at www.cwalkup.com.

Track Listing

Little Suzie's Humming; Nice Work If You Can Get It; Angel Eyes; Living in a Daydream; More Than Poor Clay; A Kiss to Build a Dream on; Cheek to Cheek; I Mean That; Reflections; Waffles and Hen; Favela

Personnel

Cathi Walkup - Vocals; Vince DiCiccio - Piano; Gerry Grosz - Vibes/Flute; Robin Lewis -7 String Guitar; Dmitry Matheny - Flugelhorn; Harvey Robb - Saxophone; Brad Buethe - Guitar; John Wiitala, Bill Douglas, John Clark - Bass; Curt Moore - Drums; Ian Dogole - Egg Shaker

Album information

Title: Living in a Daydream | Year Released: 2001 | Record Label: Flying Weasel

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.