LORRAINE FEATHER – The Body Remembers (1997) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Lorraine Feather, the daughter of the late jazz critic Leonard Feather, has performed many styles of music, but this unusual CD mixes elements of several of them. This release began life as Paper or Plastic, issued by another label with a different cover photo. After the label folded, it was remixed and issued by Bean Bag as The Body Remembers, though the second label also ceased operations not long after the new version of the CD was issued. Feather's sexy voice and often witty lyrics are appealing, though the music, with distracting programming and repetitious vamps, does little to complement them. In addition to providing her own backing vocals, Feather switches to narrative voice on several tracks. The best songs include "Very Unbecoming" and the hilarious "Where Are My Keys," songs that will hit home with many listeners. While the overall effect of the CD pales besides her superior releases New York City Drag and Café Society from a few years later, her catchy lyrics make it worth looking for. Although it is out of print, The Body Remembers is still available for purchase from the artist at www.lorrainefeather.com. Ken Dryden   Tracklist + Credits :
 

LORRAINE FEATHER – New York City Drag (2000) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Lorraine Feather (daughter of critic Leonard Feather) has made her mark as a lyricist and singer, with her former group, Full Swing, and also in non-jazz settings. New York City Drag is certainly a major change of pace, for she is featured singing a set of Fats Waller songs. Not heard are the usual Waller standards such as "Honeysuckle Rose" and "Ain't Misbehavin'" because this set is something much different. Feather wrote lyrics to a dozen of Waller's piano pieces, including "Blue Black Bottom," "Numb Fumblin'," "Valentine Stomp," "African Ripples," and other tunes that had never been sung before. She created stories to each of the songs, changing the titles and turning them into fascinating narratives. Fortunately, her appealing voice is strong enough to essay the tricky intervals, and one can always understand what she is singing. Particularly delightful are her words to "The Minor Drag" ("You're Outta Here"), "Gladyse" ("She's Gettin' Some"), "Clothes Line Ballet" ("New York City Drag"), and "Fractious Fingering" ("Jukebox"). Accompanied by either Dick Hyman or Mike Lang on piano, along with occasional quiet rhythm guitar from John Pisano, plus sometimes bass and drums, Lorraine Feather is heard on the most significant album of her career. And on "Cezanne," she is joined by Fats Waller himself via his recording of "Smashing Thirds." Waller would have thoroughly enjoyed this inspired and highly original set. Scott Yanow    Tracklist + Credits :
 

LORRAINE FEATHER – Café Society (2003) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

While it might not be as ambitious as her previous album, New York City Drag, where Lorraine Feather showed that she had the vocal and artistic chops to handle reinterpreting a number of Fats Waller tunes, Café Society does a nice job of showcasing this longtime vocalist's artistic range. From the hyper-exuberant version of "Jungle Rhythm" (featured in the sequel to the Disney classic The Jungle Book), to her reinterpretation of Duke Ellington instrumentals on "Creole Love Call" and "Rockin' in Rhythm," this album is a well-produced showcase of what Lorraine Feather can do. A number of originals co-written with famed songwriters like David Benoit and Don Grusin help add variety, with songs that range from swing to the softer side of contemporary jazz. Stacia Proefrock  Tracklist + Credits :

LORRAINE FEATHER – Such Sweet Thunder : Music of the Duke Ellington Orchestra (2003) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

It's a shame that Lorraine Feather wasn't able to contribute lyrics to the music of Duke Ellington prior to his death in 1974, as she's a natural storyteller. Ellington composed or co-wrote most of the 11 songs on this CD, though Feather chose lesser-known and especially challenging material to embellish with her gifts. She is also a superb singer who gets the most out of every track, joined by a large cast of talented musicians who sound as if they've played every chart together night after night for years.

It's hard to beat her hilarious "Imaginary Guy" (based upon "Dancers in Love"), a terrific ditty about a girl so fed up with the opposite sex that she dreamed up the ideal man in her mind. The obscure bossa nova "The Ricitic," written by Ellington for his small group session with Coleman Hawkins, is transformed to the sidesplitting "Antarctica" (sample lyrics: "I cried all night/That's half a year"), a song that is guaranteed to tickle the funny bone of the sourest curmudgeon. The dark-tinged "Lovely Creatures" (based upon the second movement to "Night Creature") is not without its humorous moments ("You've got looks and bucks and yet these blues/Seem to stick to you like gum to shoes").

She wrote the words to "September Rain" (adapted from Billy Strayhorn's gorgeous ballad "Chelsea Bridge") a number of years earlier and recorded it with her group In Full Swing. This chart, with the rhythm section arranged by pianist Mike Lang and the vocal group by Morgan Ames, is every bit as lush as the original instrumental, showcasing Feather's upper range and Terry Harrington's mellow tenor sax. "The 101" is a hard-charging reworking of "Suburbanite" that tells of a dash down a highway to catch up with her lover.

The finale, "Mighty Like the Blues," features words and music by the late Leonard Feather, Lorraine's father. Ellington recorded it in 1938 and again in 1960, though her version, jointly arranged by Russell Ferrante and Bill Elliott, will likely eclipse the maestro's own recordings. Ken Dryden     Tracklist + Credits :

LORRAINE FEATHER – Dooji Wooji (2008) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

After years of working and writing for the studios and for commercial groups, Lorraine Feather has found her niche in jazz as an inventive lyricist. Previous albums featured her very successful and witty words to Fats Waller and Duke Ellington piano pieces. Dooji Wooji, which has four Ellington tunes in the repertoire plus collaborations with Shelly Berg, Bill Elliott, Russell Ferrante, and Eddie Arkin, continues in the same vein even if most of the tunes are much more obscure. This time around, Feather, who is usually backed by five or six horns and a rhythm section, is particularly effective on the more bluesy material such as "A Ramble Through the Park," although she also does a fine job on the opening cooker "Calistoga Bay" and the uptempo "Indiana Lana" ("Jubilee Stomp"). The dozen selections are concise and the total time of the CD is under 42 minutes but what is here is excellent, almost coming to the high level of her classic Fats Waller set, New York City Drag. Scott Yanow     Tracklist + Credits : 
 

LORRAINE FEATHER – Language (2008) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Over her mere seven-album discography, Lorraine Feather has carved out a fulfilling career as a jazz singer far outdistancing many one-shots, far less talented but successful pop-jazz vocalists, and wannabes. Her talent as a lyricist of wit, sarcasm, and keen observations of the American human condition is her true strength, and not always as acknowledged as her verbal chops and inventiveness. Her language goes beyond the nomenclatures of swing, bop, and contemporary improvisation, as Feather exploits many literary references and well-worn phraseology from various acumens, and keeps the proceedings upbeat and interactive between her words and the musical notes offered by her excellent confreres. Pianist Shelly Berg is closest to Feather as a collaborator, writing the music for Feather's cleverest lyrics. The quick, lithe, bouncy, and brisk "Traffic and Weather" relates to Bay Area commuter congestion, climatological issues, or references to inseparable pairings, and "We Appreciate Your Patience," with a cynical, animated take on annoying automated answering services, teams Feather and Berg in multilevel harmonic and whimsical refrains. Feather is fond of stringing worn-out clichés together, as on "Patience," but is in an especially sharp mood about trite multiple sports adages on the bopper "Hit the Ground Runnin'," featuring a furious Russell Ferrante on piano, and tells the all too familiar thoughts-racing, mouse-on-a-treadmill tale of "Where Are My Keys?," turning a dilemma into fun. Also skillful, aside from their lyric content, are her instrumental ideas, like using a horn section and a drummer only on the sassy tale of a career dilemma "Waiting Tables," or the slinky, bluesy Duke Ellington-like "A Household Name," debunking stardom and alerting you to the pitfalls of the celebrity trap. Feather can also be sentimental, as on her romanticized Billy Strayhorn waltz tribute "In Flower," the melancholy "I Love New York at Christmas," and her most languid, evocative tune, "Making It Up as We Go Along." She is rarely self-conscious or insular, but Ferrante's modal two-chord piano prop-up during "Home Alone" keeps Feather's possible dour mood in check, although she can't help being doting on "Very Unbecoming." On occasion, vocalists Tierney Sutton, Janis Siegel, and Cheryl Bentyne enter in supportive vocal cameos. This may very well be Lorraine Feather's best effort, certainly the one where collaboration is the key, and statements on our disposable, technology-driven, time-consuming society had to be made. Bravo Lorraine, and hang in there! Michael G. Nastos       Tracklist + Credits :
 

LORRAINE FEATHER – Ages (2010) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Lorraine Feather, unlike any jazz singer on the scene, is pushing her formidable abilities to their maximum, dining and dancing on a bed of life stories that modern men and women can relate to. Essentially sophisticated metropolitan tales, Feather expands her novel-length treatises far beyond mere chapter and verse of love and loss, into an arena so compelling and emotionally involved, one feels as if they were songs with every listener in mind. She's also blessed with a keen ear for extraordinary accompanists who also co-write the music aside her lyric content, including pianists Russell Ferrante or Shelly Berg, guitarist Eddie Arkin, bassist Michael Valerio, and several fine guest soloists. The thing about these songs that truly sets them apart is they are based on pure inspiration, far removed from being based on any preconception of any jazz standards -- a true (if you'll please excuse the pun) feather in her cap. She's also using an exceptional range from high sailing to deepest low, but not obsidian levels, leaping octaves only when the mood fits, but not for simple pyrotechnical effect. As playful and lithe as she is clever, her voice suits the mood and intent of the humorous song "A Lot to Remember" as she references things happening in threes and going from "zero to sixty" in her long listings. The hip funk of "Old at 18/Dog Bowl" also runs down a veritable database of reasons why, in a mosaic that displays her more legato voicings. There are three duets, including a waltz alongside Ferrante -- "The Girl with the Lazy Eye," the story where the young person's grades are mediocre, raising more questions than answers -- while with pianist Dick Hyman, "Scrabble" is a scrambling parlor scat, jumpy and quick, whipping through words. "Peculiar Universe" is atypically melancholy for the upbeat Feather, as she operates in a Kurt Weill/Bertold Brecht world with Béla Fleck on banjo, as is Felix Mendelssohn's "Perugia," arranged by Ferrante, another waltz dripping with regret over lost love and soul. But Feather ups the emotional quotient even higher during "How Did We End Up Here?," as she, Ferrante, and vibraphonist Bob Leatherbarrow work a samba to a tick-tock beat with drummer and percussionist Michael Shapiro. Starting off light, but delving into a heavy emotional introspection as a married couple enjoy a tropical get-away, Feather creates something so powerfully intimate, pondering life, fate, and circumstance -- it's her crowning achievement on this disc, and maybe of her entire career. To say Lorraine Feather has created a triptych of experiences from adolescence to adulthood on this overview of the human condition through various ages is simplistic. What she has done is dig deep into the psyche of all of us through herself, creating a stunning recording that once again trumps the other excellent albums she has made. Asking "how did we end up here?," the listener has to pose this question in retort -- "is the sky the limit?," and "how high is that sky?". Michael G. Nastos       Tracklist + Credits :

LORRAINE FEATHER – Tales of the Unusual (2012) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Lorraine Feather is easily one of the most creative lyricists of her generation and since earning a Grammy nomination for her 2010 CD Ages, the vocalist has gained greater attention from writers who had previously overlooked her contributions. Every one of her CDs is a treat, full of surprising, often humorous song topics and devoid of predictable Moon/June assembly line lyrics, while Feather's skills as an actress and her infectious, versatile voice add to her appeal. Tales of the Unusual is no exception, with stories that at times test one's imagination and occasionally flirt with a creepy air. Most of the musicians appearing on Tales of the Unusual have worked with Feather on her earlier recordings, with Russell Ferrante and Shelly Berg alternating on piano. "Indiana Lana" is her vocal setting of Duke Ellington's "Jubilee Stomp," first recorded for her CD Dooji Wooji. This new version is a duet, with Feather's lively vocal romp about the speedy female runner accompanied by Berg, who shows off his masterful stride chops. The mysterious "Out There" keeps revealing hidden facets as Feather's lyric unfolds, as does Berg's captivating tune. Her haunting "I Took Your Hand" (which adds a lyric to Italian jazz pianist Enrico Pieranunzi's "Fellini's Waltz") is a magical ballad with a shimmering backdrop featuring violinist Charles Bisharat's elegant playing. Ferrante begins "The Hole in the Map" with an eerie flavor, though it quickly takes a comic turn as Feather shares her tale of exploring the Amazon. "Get a Room" is a hilarious swinger that would be a choice song for a romantic comedy. Her tale describes two lovers so taken with one another that everyone they encounter makes the obvious suggestion, while the solos by Berg, guitarist Mike Miller, and Bisharat add to its playfulness. Only Feather can pen a song about a street person writing a love letter on the sidewalk in chalk, as she does in "Sweet Miriam," while Eddie Arkin's music is the perfect blend of jaunty nostalgia from the 1920s with Michael Valerio's delicious arco bass underneath her mesmerizing vocal. Tales of the Unusual demonstrates that Lorraine Feather is not content to settle into a comfort zone; instead, she continues to grow as a lyricist and singer as she tackles new musical challenges with her collaborators. Ken Dryden    Tracklist + Credits :