Jazz Articles

Deanna Witkowski: Makes the Heart to Sing: Jazz Hymns

by Dan Bilawsky
December 16, 2017

The improvisatory phrase and the song of praise don't stem from the same place, but who's to say they can't break bread together? With Makes The Heart To Sing: Jazz Hymns, pianist Deanna Witkowski erases lines between the strict-toned sacred and malleable secular, creating music that manages to be tradition-minded and open-minded all at once. The fifteen tracks contained herein pull from myriad sources and eras. An African-American spiritual cozies up next to a 17th-century German hymn, ...

Deanna Witkowski: Raindrop: Improvisations with Chopin

by Hrayr Attarian
July 25, 2015

Pianist Deanna Witkowski is a truly versatile artist and consummate musician. Her superb forays into sacred music in a jazz framework, for instance, are captivating in their free flowing spirituality and her subtly adventurous category defying explorations thrill in their spontaneity and their imagination. On her fifth release, the intimate Raindrop she goes solo in interpreting and embellishing eight of polish composer Frederic Chopin's deeply emotive pieces. She elegantly peppers these with fragments of Bossa Nova and other ...

Deanna Witkowski: From This Place

by Jerry D'Souza
May 14, 2009

Deanna Witkowski takes the spiritual road on From This Place through gospel, Catholic liturgy, blues and jazz, and 19th century text to which she has written music.

Sacred music and jazz have come together through Mary Lou Williams and Duke Ellington, to name two, while John Coltrane brought in his own ardent beliefs to several of his compositions. Witkowski's sacerdotal calling is strongly manifested, particularly in the sincerity of her singing.

“Let My Prayer Rise (Psalm ...