Album Notes

"With a musical landscape chock full of female singers, the thing that gets your interest is some special quality that can’t be measured in sharps and flats. Call it pizzazz, personality, or the content of one’s character. Whatever it is, this elusive quality is what makes one’s ears perk up and take notice. Kelsey Jillette has this quality..."
-Mark Kirby, WWW.MUSICDISH.COM (Associate Writer)

"The vocalist Kelsey Jillette...is one of the best in the business today. Totally soulful and rich in taste. She is a major talent! You ought to hear her. You have to. I hope you do."
- performer, author, educator Tim Price

"Great vocal, strong with excellent breath! Nice groove, too!"
-Indie-Music.com, Nov 2008

“A fresh approach to jazz standards... Her scat evokes memories of Ella Fitzgerald...”
-Greenwich Time, May 2006

From the biography:

...It comes across in a breathy, natural voice- conversational, but full of intensity and with loud bouts of joy, humor, pathos, and the blues. It is found in the expressiveness with which she sings every word, every line of a song. While she can use her voice in a Dianne Reeves style scat-singing mode, her forte is smooth, emotionally nuanced expression of a song’s melody. This is perfectly in keeping with her live performance style which favors relating to the audience and the listener with the unpretentious naturalism of the really cool girl next door over the pompous grandiosity of the diva.

“The Water is Wide” is another example of Ms. Jillette’s artistry. This song is a perfect mix of gospel, jazz, and pop. It starts out with her singing a Scottish folk tune with all its pathos and longing; after singing the words she riffs off the wordless melody to Dizzy's Con Alma, answered by Abbott’s sax. Her broad eclecticism is further shown on “Manha de Carnaval.” On this Brazilian classic she showcases both her versatility and signature style, with a sensual Portugese vocal which recalls Brazilian chanteuse Elis Regina, lilting over a kinky reggae groove. She applies this same conceptual inventiveness and playfulness on “Honeysuckle Rose.” Unlike so many singers who do an old sawhorse tune in the familiar rote way, Ms. Jillette adds a little twist to this oldest of old standards. It starts off with a funky offbeat waltz which seamlessly slides into a hard swinging groove. Here she adds some tasteful scat singing, truly emulating a horn (not the cornball jazz-bo rat pack jive that often passes for this deceptively difficult art and skill).

Kelsey Jillette’s music, while thoroughly steeped in classic American jazz, transcends genres that in past eras were not viewed as contradictory. “I sing the songs I feel like singing, because I get a feeling for both the words and the music. Sometimes one is better than the other; ideally both are compelling.” This organic process in finding and connecting to the music has resulted the CD The Water is Wide, an eclectic new record that has swing, gospel, pop, bebop, and both traditional and funkified versions of great jazz songs.
-Mark Kirby, WWW.MUSICDISH.COM (Associate Writer)