Send For Me (Dot Time Records)
Catherine Russell
Released April 2022
JAZZ FM 25 Best Jazz Albums of 2022
New York City Record Best Vocal Releases of 2022
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About:
Grammy nominated vocalist Catherine Russell, when asked to characterize her new album, Send For Me, replied, “I love romance that swings.” Send For Me features a baker’s dozen of newly recorded tunes on her eighth album as a leader, meeting a simple exacting standard. “Songs that inspire or touch me in some way. When I find a song I like, it haunts me until I learn it.” Her mission is finding songs that you might not have heard but deserve attention.
Russell’s deep connection to her chosen material is part of a calling. As the daughter of pioneering and legendary musicians, pianist/orchestra leader/composer/arranger Luis Russell, and bassist/guitarist/vocalist Carline Ray, Catherine Russell was born into jazz royalty. In culling material for her new album from the likes of Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole, Luis Russell, Betty Carter, Kay Starr, Joe Liggins, Earl King, Jack Teagarden, Helen Humes, Frank Sinatra, Dakota Staton, Henry Red Allen, and Louis Armstrong, the vocalist swims in familiar waters. She sings a language that comes naturally, furthering a profound legacy.
Send For Me is a follow up to Russell’s 2019 release Alone Together, which received a Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album, and landed on the JazzWeek year-end radio chart as the #1 most played album. “I like to invite the people in,” she says of her new album, which is also her philosophy of performing live. The album is an invitation, welcoming the audience to come along on a journey.
Track Listing:
1. Did I Remember (3:28)
2. Send For Me (4:45)
3. At The Swing Cats Ball (3:05)
4. Make It Last (4:42)
5. Going Back To New Orleans (3:38)
6. If I Could Be With You (3:41)
7. You Can Fly High (2:54)
8. East of The Sun (and West of The Moon) (3:48)
9. In The Night (4:12)
10. You Stepped Out of A Dream (3:24)
11. Blue and Sentimental (3:08)
12. Sticks and Stones (3:00)
13. Million Dollar Smile (3:38)
Personnel:
Catherine Russell: vocals, percussion (5, 7); hand claps (2)
Matt Munisteri: guitar, musical director, banjo (5, 6)
Tal Ronen: bass (except 5)
Mark McLean: drums; tambourine (5)
Mark Shane: piano (1,3,4,7,12)
Sean Mason: piano (2,6,8,9,10,11,13)
Jon-Erik Kellso: trumpet (1,3,4,7,9,12)
John Allred: trombone (1,3,4,6,7,9,12)
Evan Arntzen: reeds (1,3,4,7,9,12)
Paul Nedzela: baritone saxophone (9)
Mark Lopeman: tenor saxophone (2)
Aaron Heick: tenor saxophone (2)
Philip Norris: tuba (5)
Paul Kahn: hand claps (2)
Recorded June 10-11, 2021, at Sear Sound, Studio A, NYC and September 4th and 14th, 2021, at Reservoir Sound, NYC, by Katherine Miller
Produced by Catherine Russell, Paul Khan and Katherine Miller
Mixed by Katherine Miller
Mastered by Alan Silverman
Photography by Sandrine Lee
Design by Karin Elsener Design
Review:
Where can one separate nostalgia from performance practice? Vocalist Catherine Russell prefers to engage her art using older formats. On Send For Me, Russell infuses her performances with a certain New Orleans-cum-Chicago flavor, circa 1930. She does not do this as a gimmick, rather it is the style in which she best works. Of the material on Send For Me, Russell states that she, …”loves romance that swings.” The musical hinge joining the 1930s with the ’40s provides her an able vehicle. Consider the NOLA clarinet and ensemble brass on “Did I Remember, ” or the Chicago jive of “At The Swing Cats Ball.” These songs are best presented this way, not for eliciting nostalgia, but because of a closer-than-skin connotation that the period of composition provided the pieces. Russell’s song choice is solidly weighted, the most “standard” standard being Brooks Bowman’s “East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)” which is dispatched with a certain New York City flair. Russell continues to create living considerations of her repertoire that compel and delight.
C. Michael Bailey (All About Jazz)
