Melanie Charles: Y’All Don’t (Really) Care About Black Women

Vocalist Melanie Charles taps into the sounds and recordings of her inspirations in this mix of modern, urban and classical jazz sounds. She uses the actual voices and recordings of Sarah Vaughan (“Detour Ahead”), Billie Holiday (“God Bless The Child”), Ella Fitzgerald (“Beginning To See The Light”), Betty Carter (“Jazz (Ain’t Nothing But Soul)”), Marlena Shaw (“Woman of the Ghetto”) and Dinah Washington (“Perdido”) in ‘re-imagined’ settings, which means adding urban synths and hip hop  pulses into the original swing/bop feel of the tunes. These work out in a mixed fashion, wishing for either a completely original take, while her own “Go Away Little Boy” a luscious synthy soul treat. Likewise, “All Africa” has a collection of tribal layers of beat and voices that is  passionate and alluring. The issues brought up here are of the present racial/societal variety, showing that sin never changes with the times, although styles of music do.

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