You don’t get sassier, higher, jazzier and swingier than Logan – at least, not all at once.

Label: Right Track Distribution
Time: 12 Tracks / 49 mins

If you want something to get you out of bed quickly, try this. You’ll have danced around the room twice before you can wipe the sleep out of your eyes.

Berklee College of Music alumnus, singer and trombonist Aubrey Logan is ever-upbeat as she mixes old and new in a thoroughly exuberant way.

‘Modern swing’ is one way to label her work, that jazzy style lying at the root of what she does, and her appearance with Postmodern Jukebox (slogan: ‘Gramophone music in a smartphone world’) gives another clue to her eclectic approach.

Her biggest break was Simon Cowell rejecting her on American Idol for being, “too jazzy.” Months later, she won the Montreux Jazz Festival Voice Competition and has since appeared with Josh Groban, Quincy Jones, Burt Bacharach, Smokey Robinson and Pharrell Williams.

A sassy personality ignites her powerhouse four-octave range, and she could front a musical without breaking sweat.

This collection gets its name because people told her that she could not hold together such a variety of styles. They are wrong. Her character draws these pieces together. It helps that they are all pretty bold, whether “Habanera” from Carmen or her own funky “Pistol,” which is designed to recreate the feel of 1960s soundtracks like James Bond in a 21st century way. She also veers towards gospel in “Don’t Wanna Tell Nobody.”

For me, the only mis-step is her duet with Casey Abrams on “California Dreamin’,” where Abrams over-eggs it at the end. Perhaps he feels he needs to do so to match Logan’s mile-tall personality.

Ballad “Starting to Believe” shows how well Logan can play it down when she has to and across the disc she holds phenomenally high notes with apparent ease (just catch that note in “Louboutins,” for one).

As a cursory flick through her YouTube moments will testify, those who put her down will have to eat their words, as not only can she re-work artists as varied as Ella Fitzgerald, Prince and MC Hammer, but she colours them with her own inimitable style.

Impossible? No way.


Derek Walker
http://walkerwords.wordpress.com