Further Jazz Voices

World of Jazz Overflow 6

This latest Overflow set of current and forthcoming releases featuring jazz vocalists demonstrates the variety of material that fits under that broad categorisation. From ambient moody pieces, through straight ahead fun sessions, to the more experimental, this playlist provides a fascinating insight into the current scene.

Audio

Featured Albums

Ran Blake & Dominique Eade: Roots & Byways (Sunnyside Records)

3rd July 2026

Featured Tracks - Mood Indigo/Grey December

Dominique Eade and Ran Blake met in 1978 when Eade arrived in Boston to study at Berklee – then she heard Blake perform at New England Conservatory, where he’s still on faculty. The encounter proved life-changing for the young singer. “Ran’s solo playing seemed to me like an inevitable extension of Thelonious Monk, who I adored,” Eade recalls. “That’s when I decided to switch and study at NEC.”

Blake was equally impressed with Eade’s expansive talents. “Dominique is one of our great singers, composers and teachers,” he says. “Her range is fabulous and her ears pick up amazing subtleties. Her repertoire ranges from Stan Kenton to coal miner songs to English folk songs, and she has a keen sense of pulse with bebop scat, political protest, and the forgotten standards. It felt so natural performing with her.”

They have enthusiastically combed the diverse paths of the “American songbook” for decades and their third duo recording, Roots & Byways, showcases just how fruitful their journey has been.

Duchess - A Marvellous Party (Anzic Records)

12th June, 2026

Featured Tracks - Are We Having A Good Time?/Ain’t That A Kick In The Head

While never pretending that these aren’t troubled times, the ladies of New York-based jazz vocal trio Duchess — Amy Cervini, Hilary Gardner and Melissa Stylianou — insist that lightness of spirit is perhaps never more important than when shadows loom. Fun is a therapeutic release, after all. To that end, Duchess returns with its fourth full-length album, and first in six years. Brimful of swinging joie de vivre, the album captures the singers harmonizing their way through vintage songs in richly inventive arrangements tailormade by the Grammy-nominated Oded Lev-Ari, producer and virtual fourth member of Duchess. A Marvellous Party is a concept album, a shindig in song that spins the tale of a party in all its scenes and shades of feeling, from eager anticipation and dizzy elation to wistful ennui and, ultimately, warm-hearted appreciation of it all. With its ace rhythm section plus five horns in tow, Duchess colours the performances with Rat Pack-style playfulness, something the Wall Street Journal caught early on about the trio: “They understand that swinging music goes hand in hand with an audacious sense of humour.”

Christine Fawson - It Could Happen To You (Self Produced)

1st June 2026

Featured Track - My Heart Stood Still

A delightful entertainer who is equally skilled as a jazz singer and trumpeter, Christine Fawson is heard in spirited form throughout her fifth album as a leader. She is joined by a top-notch rhythm section from New England consisting of pianist Tim Ray, bassist Dave Zinno, and drummer Casey Scheuerell. With Ms. Fawson, Ray, and producer Brad Hatfield supplying the arrangements, the quartet’s versions of standards are filled with subtle surprises, a few unexpected twists and turns, and creative playing.

Norma Winstone & Steve Gray with the NDR Symphony Orchestra - Life In The Modern World (Emodoc)

26th June, 2006

Featured Track - Life In The Modern World

The second single from the first album issue of this amazing concert with the NDR radio orchestra from 1990. In that year the internationally renowned NDR radio orchestra (now the NDR Radiophilharmonie) invited the peerless singer and lyricist Winstone to collaborate on a broadcast session. She immediately turned to pianist and arranger Steve Gray and working with the superb radio band they created together an unforgettable, beautiful suite of songs including classic repertoire and modern gems featuring Norma’s own lyrics. This is a rare oppotunity hear one of our greatest jazz singers backed by a full orchestra.

Julián Muro - APFUS, VOL. 1 (ears&eyes Records)

20th May, 2026

Featured Track - No se está solo (Featuring Bergamot Quartet, Ethan Coen)

This release dwells in the subtle intersection of contemporary chamber music, improvisation, and South American roots music. Driven by what he describes as a “tension between his untamed nature and his artistic calling,” Muro left his home in the Argentine Patagonia in 2018 to embark on an itinerant life. After years of European nomadism—where he funded his first recordings by working in mountain refuges in the Alps—his artistic compass led him to the asphalt of New York, earning a full scholarship for the then-brand-new Performer-Composer Master of Music at The New School. The seed for his most ambitious recording project, APFUS, had been planted years earlier during a residency at the Banff Centre (Canada), where he first collaborated with Dave Douglas. Reunited in New York, and moved by the urgency to transform his life’s journey into a tangible sonic testament, Muro presented him with his sketches. Douglas immediately assumed the role of mentor and co-producer. The first volume presents a chamber ecosystem, while the second installment, slated for 2027, will feature a jazz ensemble with Dave Douglas as a guest artist. Recorded “the old-fashioned way” by engineer Geoff Countryman—live in a single room in New York without acoustic isolation between the instruments—the record achieves an organic and genuine sonority, becoming a triumph of imagination over a scarcity of resources. The meticulous arrangement work, which successfully amalgamates contemporary music with jazz and folklore, received guidance from figures such as Jacob Garchik, one of the primary arrangers for the Kronos Quartet, and Emilio Solla, a Latin Grammy winner known for his unique treatment of tango and jazz in a Big Band format.

Sarah Sharp - Deja Vü (Spaceflight Records)

15th May, 2026

Featured Track - For No One

After nine years of her prestigious residency at the Elephant Room, Austin, Texas singer Sarah Sharp recorded her debut album in the studio of local guitar legend Eric Johnson, who offered the space to her after being mesmerized by one of her performances. The result crosses over a multitude of genres, from jazz, to folk, to americana, providing a wide cinematic canvas on which she traverses a haunting emotional journey. Deja Vü marks the singer coming into her own in the national spotlight, with a distinguished, smoky vocal in the lineage of Norah Jones. A great rendition of a Lennon-McCartney classic.

Giovanni Nardiello - Perspectives (Aut Records)

12th June, 2026

Featured Track - Crimson, Haluskein

Giovanni Nardiello is an Italian drummer and composer active in contemporary jazz and improvised music. His work centres on small‑group interaction, structurally open writing, and rhythmic development. He leads the trio project Perspectives with Joseph Nowell and Stefano Zambon, and appears regularly in Brussels and northern Italy scenes through club residencies, collaborative ensembles and workshop activity. His material draws on rock, modern jazz language and free‑improv practice, with an emphasis on collective shaping of form. Noemi Fiorucci guests on vocals on four of the tracks from this album.