Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Christiana Drapkin & Charles Sibirsky: Songs About You

122

Christiana Drapkin & Charles Sibirsky: Songs About You

Christiana Drapkin & Charles Sibirsky: Songs About You
Subtitled Jazz Standards & New Tunes, this second album by singer Christiana Drapkin offers six selections from the Great American Songbook and jazz standards, along with six new originals. The group is headed by pianist Charles Sibirsky, who is Drapkin's teacher/composer/accompanist. He is an adept pianist and has written some good material here. The album opens in a promising manner with a laid back, mid-tempo "Time On My Hands" with the singer's relaxed and assured delivery. A Sibirsky original, "Open Your Heart" begins as an attractive bossa with a guitar intro from John Merrill and is one of the high points of the session. Drapkin then presents a smokey cabaret reading of "You Don't Know What Love Is."

The album continues with four successive new tunes. "Cholesterol Blues" is a "cute" song with a humorous idea. Unfortunately, it is not that funny and the lyrics do not warrant the six minute-plus running time. The best of these songs is the ballad "Jazzman's Serenade," written by tenor saxman Charley Krachy, who is given a feature spot. Another of these tunes, "Formation," written by Sibirsky, features Drapkin's scatting with the piano trio. An appearance by Krachy's tenor sax could have added to this bebop line.

Christiana Drapkin also provides vocals for two bona fide jazz standards. On "Procrastination Blues," which are lyrics set to Charlie Parker's "Now's The Time," the words do not sing the praises of Bird as Eddie Jefferson and Jon Hendricks have done in the past. Rather, hers is a pleasant and tuneful story of a person's time management problems. Thelonious Monk's "Blue Monk" is presented here with Abbey Lincoln's lyrics and retitled "Monkery's The Blues." After about thirty years of hearing this lyric performed soulfully by Abbey Lincoln in her Candid days, this is a change of pace. The latter part of this album contains two sturdy standards, "Just Friends" and "Out of Nowhere," that are often used as jazz vehicles. They both start out brightly but seem attenuated by the vocalese and scatting from Drapkin. I would have welcomed the presence of Merrill and Krachy on these selections.

Track Listing

Time On My Hands(You In My Arms), Open Your Heart, You Don't Know What Love Is, Cholesterol Blues, Among The Living, Formation, Jazzman's Serenade, Procrastination Blues (Now's The Time), Songs About You, Just Friends, Monkery's The Blues (Blue Monk), Out of Nowhere.

Personnel

Christiana Drapkin,vocal; Charles Sibirsky,piano; Murray Wall,bass; John Merrill,guitar; Charley Kracky, tenor sax.

Album information

Title: Songs About You | Year Released: 2004 | Record Label: IANA

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

Eternal Moments
Yoko Yates
From "The Hellhole"
Marshall Crenshaw
Tramonto
John Taylor

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.