Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Odetta: Lookin For A Home

120

Odetta: Lookin For A Home

By

View read count
Odetta: Lookin For A Home
In 2000 Odetta released a marvelous comeback album entitled Blues Everywhere I Go that was nominated for a Grammy Award. Her recent follow-up album, Lookin For A Home: Thanks to Leadbelly, is every bit as good, perhaps even better. A tight band has gotten even tighter and Odetta’s comfort level with these musicians is something to behold. Odetta has a remarkably expressive creativity as a vocal interpreter of the blues. Her phrasing extends syllables and words, pulling them up short, using spaces and silences, pitch and volume like an accomplished jazz musician. On Lookin For A Home, she reinterprets blues and popular music standards, such as "Goodnight Irene," "Rock Island Line," "Easy Rider," and "Midnight Special" in her laid back, unpredictable style. Much credit should also go to her band for intuitively sharing the spirit of Odetta’s approach. Her rapport with this band is uncanny, musicians and singer nudging and inspiring each other every step along the way. In short, Odetta and her band have recorded two extraordinary albums; it is difficult to imagine what this group of talented musicians will do next, but I do suspect it will be well worth the wait. Highly recommended.



Track Listing

Goodnight Irene; You Don

Personnel

Odetta
guitar, acoustic

Odetta, vocals; Seth Farber, piano and organ; Mike Merritt, acoustic bass; Jimmy Vivino, guitars and banjo; Shawn Felton or Richard Crooks, drums; James Saporito, percussion; Fred Koella, violin and mandolin; Clarence

Album information

Title: Lookin For A Home | Year Released: 2003 | Record Label: M.C. Records

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.