Just when you think every singer sounds like the next one, someone like Joanie Pallatto comes up and shows you that there are still fresh flowers to be watered. The vocalist teams up with pianist Bradley Parker for a collection of creative originals that mix tributes to inspirations with poetic longings.
Pallatto shows her expressive charms and range on a playful push and pull with Parker on “Cottage Grove” while her vulnerability is heart on sleeve for “The Ferris Wheel”. She gives a recitative reading that leads to pathos, surrounded by Parker’s crystal stars on the moonlight “Epilogue” while the two waltz as bohemians on the spacious “The Ferris Wheel”.
Parker gives impressions like a day at Givenchy on his lily pads aria of “Another Solo” and the darkly resolute “Sparrow Solo” adding Debussy’d lights when Pallatto enters stage left on “Stare Ahead”. An elliptical tip of the beret have the two change pace and radiance on the clever “Monk Is Drunk” , with Pallatto using the title “Jim De Jong” as a rhythmic percussion line as a coax to Parker’s moods. Last but not least of the dedications is a romantic longing of the two swooning on the subtly samba’d “Jobim”. This is music done with pastels.