On the cover, vocalist Roberta Brenza doesn’t wear her singing influence on her sleeve, but on her T-shirt, as a picture of bop pioneer Sheila Jordan peeks through with a smile. Her presence is felt and heard here, as Brenza mixes bop and modern jazz with a team of Stacy Dillard/ts-ss, Dawn Clement/p-key, Cameron Brown/b and Matthew Wilson/dr. Jordan jumps in for a couple tunes having a hoot of a time with Brenza and tenorist Dillard on a snappy “Bebop Live” while breezing around Wilson’s brushes on “Art Deco”.
Brenza herself is loose and elastic with Dillard’s soprano and Wilson’s sticks on a fluid read of the classic ”Take Five”, giving bedroom eyes with sotto voce on “Estate”, and quirky as all get out with Clement on “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head”. Her enunciation is consonant perfect, cooing on the title track while flexible on a duet with Brown on “Bye Bye Blackbird” and cozying up to Clement’s striding ivories on “Ballad of the Paper Moon/It’s Only A Paper Moon”. `Many colors of the bebopping prism.