Vocalist Victoria Kaunova has a strong, optimistic and almost Broadway styled voice, and uses it well in a jazz sitting with partner Ilya Morozov on alto sax and flute along with Alex Sipiagin/tpfh, Azat Bayazitov/ts, Evgeny Lebedev/p, Daria Chernakova/b and Alexander Kulkov/dr on a collection of standards and beyond.
Kaunova is fresh and poppish with some driving horn section work in support of Seamus Blake’s upbeat “Nobody’s Song But His Own” and the urgent read of “Get Out Of Town.” Kaunova shows her scat chops on the hard bopping and assertive “Filthy McNasty” which lets Morozov, Sipagin and Bayazitov show their wares. With Lebedev’s gracious support, Kaunova gets wide eyed on the wanderlusting “East Village Inamorata” and her rich and ebullient intro to “You’re Everything,” leading to an upbeat groover of the Chick Corea tune. Her enunciation gets cleverly percussive on the Latin “Butterfly” and bluesy with the saxes as she draws out the lyrics on “You Happened My Way.” Strong, clever and accessible; when’s she hitting Los Angeles?