Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Joanna Weinberg: The Piano Diaries

92

Joanna Weinberg: The Piano Diaries

By

View read count
Joanna Weinberg: The Piano Diaries
Australian vocalist Joanna Weinberg is a difficult artist to pigeonhole in one genre. A testament to her versatility, The Piano Diaries is a very personal debut stemming from her restarting piano lessons after a three-decade hiatus, and represents a musical distillation of her eponymous autobiographical one-woman show.

The dozen-song set showcases her various influences yet create a very original whole. Her times spent in South Africa are reflected in the jazz-like township theme of "Daughters of the Empire," a feeling enhanced by saxophonist Mark Ginsburg, while the lyrics to the otherwise Irish-sounding "Freckled Angels," are replete with droll impishness and melodic hooks.

Weinberg's poetic verse on the folk/blues-tinged "Innocence" is reminiscent of Leonard Cohen, without his dark-tinged humor. She purrs through:
So come my darling
With your pale wounded feet
We'll get out of the spotlights
And we'll make love in the middle of George street.


Elsewhere, on the somber and melancholic "Witness," her sensual voice is framed by sparse notes from pianist Rafael Nazario and cellist Kate Adams, as she utters the chilling words:
The heavy shape your body made
It takes a month for it to vanish
The grass will grow, the wheels will turn
And I am there, I am your witness.


Weinberg's time as a Cabaret star endows several of the tunes with a theatrical quality that is more Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weil than it is Broadway. The lush, almost fairy tale-like ballad "The Artists are Leaving" has hints of classical style, especially during the cello interludes, while the whimsical story of her parents, "Benjamin and Penelope," could easily fit in a Weil opus. The gypsy-informed "The Winds of Fear" conveys its message of wanderers seeking refuge with its bittersweet melody, even if it contains no lyrics.

Whether she is singing an Afro-Cuban song like on "Beautiful Old Man," with its infectious soprano sax solo, or a tongue-in-cheek retro piece like "Piano at the Cabaret," Weinberg brings a unique wisdom-tempered exuberance to both her writing and performance that makes this handsomely designed and impeccably mastered record an all-around delight.

Track Listing

Freckled Angels; Innocence; Daughters of the Empire; The Artists are Leaving; Benjamin and Penelope; The Winds of Fear; Wide Open Eyes; Beautiful Old Man; Witness; Mama Buy Your Baby a Piano; Trophy Wife; The Piano at the Cabaret.

Personnel

Joanna Weinberg: vocals; Rafael Nazario: keyboards; Kate Adams: cello; Mark Ginsburg: soprano and tenor saxophones, flute; Martijn Hadders: guitar; Jonathan Zwartz: bass; Simon Fishburn: drums; Blair Greenberg: percussion.

Album information

Title: The Piano Diaries | Year Released: 2012 | Record Label: Self Produced

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.