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CD design by Skip Bolen |
Reviews of
LIKE A WOMAN...
“I was absolutely delighted from the very first second of "You Go To My Head" all the way to the end of the fantastic album. What a great vocal performance. Congratulations. Haven't heard such an engaging and entertaining vocal jazz album in a long while. Best Regards."
Matthias Kirsch, Head of Music for Jazzradio 101.9 in Berlin, Germany
From EJazzNews.com Top Ten List:
Dani Thompson - Fine Lady of Song
LONDON - Reviewers like this writer are naturally suspicious of female jazz singers whose product is partially sold through a combination of frothy puffery and photography bordering on the sexually explicit.
When the genuine songstress makes an appearance, however, she is instantly recognisable. Her selling points are no less than vocal supremacy and the unreserved ability to interpret the lyric. And so it should be.
Such is the case with British-born, Los Angeles-based Dani Thompson, whose debut, "Like A Woman", presents a mixed and engaging format of standards and originals in a straightahead jazz setting with a trio of sharp musicians.
"Like A Woman" comprises thirteen selctions. Eleven of these emerge from that weather-beaten, tried-and-trusted benchmark known as the (jazz and blues) standards tradition.
Ms. Thompson tackles them all in her inimitable style, by turns languorous and theatrical. If you take the J.F. Coots/H. Gillespie composition "You Go To My Head" for example, you may be minded to brush it off as nothing more than supper-club fare. Listen again and check out Dani's articulation, her narrative sense. The singer's husband Bud, tickles the upper registers of the piano, enticingly teasing out the melody, while Timothy Emmons and Tim Pleasant take care of business on bass and drums respectively. The lyric's emotional properties are assuredly resurrected in the hands (and pipes) of this aggregation.
The unerring formula finds transparent expression in "Piney Brown Blues", "Easy Living", and "The Way you Look Tonight". And Dani wrings emotional moisture from vintage materials such as "Sideshow", arguably the most precious of the lyrical gems mined in her repertoire.
Have you heard "Body and Soul" rendered in Spanish? This CD is the place to check it out. Dani's unmistakeable depth of feeling comes through on the cut. Her French lanaguage skills are also showcased on her original "Ne T'en Vas Pas".
With formal ballet and classical studies under her belt by mid-teens, Dani Thompson won a scholarship to the prestigious East 15 Acting School and under the direction of Joan Littlewood, spent two years honig her skills before joining the British Repertory Theatre. There, she starred in over 75 theatrical productions.
Her sojourn in the US gave her the chance to study with the late Ernie Washington as well as to begin a career as a jazz artist in clubs as far apart as Hawaii and London. She has also worked in film and television racking up performances in Hawaii 5-0 for example.
"Like a Woman" is sure to leave Dani Thompson fans begging for more.
John Stevenson, EJazzNews.com
'Pheeeeeew!! Once I got past this woman's flawless good looks, I proceeded to 'review her disc...(Somehow, that doesn't sound so nice!) Just kidding!.......chortle, chortle! Dani Thompson takes us through her version of the American Songbook. And, what a lovely journey. I have often observed that true jazz singers allow their audiences (by default), to become familiar with every manifestation of their personal rendition of the art of vocal jazz, Dani Thompson accomplishes this for us, & leads the listener through her poignant renditions, to a richer understanding of the jazz-pop vocal idiom.
I bring attention to her tender (Spanish lyrics) report of the jazz classic, "Body & Soul."', 'Here, I'm sensing her artistic desire to make us become more complete, conscious, and aware-listener-devotees of her craft. Therein lies the kernel of her fine vocal talent, and I might point out that it shouldn't have to be any more difficult than that. This disc has become a favorite of this reviewer. Dani Thompson brings to the vocal idiom, a certain symphonic poetry. Her music seems to describe something 'outside'of itself, in a perfectly simple, natural, & almost childlike manner. Let's keep her!
George W. Carroll, EJazzNews.com and JazzReview.com
LIKE A WOMAN is available for purchase, click
here to buy it now.
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