Jazz Articles

Marilyn Scott: Standard Blue

by Dan Bilawsky
April 7, 2017

With an album title like this, some may be expecting boilerplate jazz that hews closely to some sort of straight-and-narrow musical orthodoxy. That, however, isn't what you get from vocalist Marilyn Scott. While it's true that Standard Blue is filled with familiar titles, these performances never sound platitudinous. Scott paints standards with a cool-headed attitude, exhibiting a strong appreciation for dialed- down fusion, straight ahead sounds, semi-smooth aesthetics, blues feeling, and, most importantly, hybridization. From the first ...

Marilyn Scott: Standard Blue

by C. Michael Bailey
March 3, 2017

Vocalist Marilyn Scott is not a new name in music. She has released 14 recording since the late 1980s, including the present Standard Blue. It is odd, then, that she has had so little coverage in these pages. George Harris wrote a revealing piece on her 2006 release, Handpicked (Prana Entertainment), but that is about it. A versatile artist, Scott has been able to exist, multidimensionally, across multiple genre, which has proven to be her charm. She does something very ...

Marilyn Scott: Handpicked

by George Harris
May 14, 2006

On the heels of her excellent and most jazz-induced 2004 release, Nightcap, Marilyn Scott takes a step back and gives her growing group of fans a remarkable overview of her projection with a set of songs from her ten-year career. The queen of hazel-eyed soul leaves us with an entertaining sampler of her singing, interpretation and songwriting skills.

With George Duke at the helm of most of the songs, Scott has found the perfect partner to illuminate her sensitive yet ...