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Marlena Shaw at Jazz Au Bar
by Nick Catalano
Of all the references that reviewers use to describe jazz performances perhaps the most common is the term “swing." We are all familiar with it and yet it is one of the most difficult expressions to define precisely. Its essence involves subtle and artistic variations of established rhythms but the many techniques involved in this subtlety are too numerous to go into here. We can all agree that few jazzers have “swung" more mightily than figures like Count Basie, Ella ...
read moreMarlena Shaw: Lookin' for Love
by Dr. Judith Schlesinger
In today's garden of vocalists, there are many pretty flowers. Sweet and delicate, they line up in perfumed rows, but many are unlikely to make it past the first frost. Then there's the flowering tree, standing apart, with its roots deeply anchored in the ground--this one endures every weather, delivering the soulful beauty and reassurance of the survivor. That's Marlena Shaw.Shaw sings with the ease of absolute mastery, and each feeling she expresses rings true: she's been there, ...
read moreMarlena Shaw: Live in Tokyo
by Dr. Judith Schlesinger
The very young 441 Records has a great plan: bringing Sony and JVC Japanese releases to wider audiences... and this one is a corker. But then, so is Marlena Shaw, a fascinating performer who takes absolute (yet warm and friendly) command of every audience lucky enough to see her. This live CD, recorded at the B-flat club in Tokyo in 2002, conveys much of the excitement, but necessarily misses a few crucial aspects: her elementally expressive face and body, her ...
read moreMarlena Shaw: Elemental Soul
by AAJ Staff
After favoring soul and disco in the 1970s and early '80s, Marlena Shaw has made jazz her #1 priority in the 1990s. The big-voiced, Carmen McRae-influenced singer did some impressive things in R&B (including the humorous “Go Away, Little Boy"), but Elemental Soul reminds us that it's certainly great to have her back on the jazz tip. Shaw (who is joined by tenor hero Stanley Turrentine on three tunes) shows just how persuasive an improviser she can be on everything ...
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