Austin-based singer-songwriter Jean Synodinos belts out the kind of bluesy vocal delivery that is paradoxically both bawdy and coy. There's just a hint-of-Texas mystery to her vibe that you can't quite define... is it down-home or come-hither? Synodinos' résumé of numerous songwriting awards attests to the spunk with which she's attacked her late-in-life career change, relying on the same personal tenacity which saw her successfully through the terror of a breast cancer diagnosis in 2002. The title to this CD, "Lucky", sums up the irony of Synodinos' leap of faith towards the fine music she was destined to make, made all the more possible by the liberating aftermath of a second chance. She's wisely surrounded herself on this CD with superb sidemen, including guitarists Charles Rieser and David Hamburger, and just the right mix of horns to perfectly complement her acoustic musical vision. The musical moods are primarily jazz and blues inflected, but run the gamut from footloose ("Running with Me"), intimate and intense ("I Want to Know You"), steamy (a cover of Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billie Joe") to humorously self-deprecating ("Big Wahoo"). Whoever is touched by a listen to Synodinos' music is sure to feel the luck.
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As fine a vocalist as she is a composer, Synodinos' Lucky is among the most overlooked albums of recent memory.
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A writer of humor, grit and grace, Jean has a smoky mezzo well-suited to her elliptical storytelling lyrics.
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Few can genre-skate well, but perhaps that's because few have a voice as amazingly versatile as Jean Synodinos.  Fresh but down-home dirty.  Pure but worldly.  Bottomless but downy-light.  With that cannon in her pocket, Synodinos could sing any piece passable as music and cast it into greatness.  Beyond doubt, Jean Synodinos is a woman to be reckoned with.
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