Vying For The Prize
author: Ottawa Citizen
Ima Rating 4
Yvette Tollar (ROM)
Try to pigeonhole Toronto singer Yvette Tollar's new CD Ima and you're in for some frustration.
The disc is in the running for best vocal jazz album, but its heavy-on-originals program nods to sophisticated pop, folk and world music. Meanwhile, powerful improvising, vivid and nuanced accompaniment and a go-for-it attitude make it 100-per-cent jazz.
Contradiction, the disc's evocative, polyrhythmic opener, and I Forgive You, a splashy, minor-key churner, feature Dave Restivo's surging piano. On Do You Remember Me and Hang On, folksy ballads by guitarist Kevin Breit, Tollar gives Norah Jones a run for her money. Tollar channels her inner Joni Mitchell on Edith and the Kingpin, which features a star turn from pianist David Virelles.
Throughout, bassist Rich Brown and drummer Larnell Lewis supply plenty of bottom-heavy muscle.
A lesser singer could not bind such disparate material into a single CD. Nor would could she ride above powerhouses like Restivo, Virelles and Breit. But with her assured and expressive voice, Tollar's more than up to the challenge, and deserves her category's Juno.
Peter Hum
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Ima
author: Sharron McLeod
Yvette Tollar
Ima (Brown/Tollar)
Independant
When Yvette Tollar launched her sophomore CD release Ima at the Glenn Gould Studio November 28, 2008, she stated she decided to record a collection of songs by Canadian composers and lyricists as a result of writer’s block.
These composers include people like Joni Mitchell, Kevin Breit, Dave Restivo, and Ms.Tollar herself despite her writer’s block.
Since her first release she has grown as an interpreter of songs as well as a composer of songs. Her voice is supple and versatile with soulfulness reminiscent of Stevie Wonder in places. (Have a listen to Prayer For Human Kindness)
The album opens with Maryem Tollar’s composition Contradiction a hopeful song with a wave like feeling. The title track Ima’s lyric, was translated by Ms Tollar from the poetry of her uncle Joska from his mother tongue Hungarian. The music, written by Ms Tollar herself, is dark and mysterious. The lyric invokes finality reminiscent of Billy Holiday’s Gloomy Sunday. (Also known as the Hungarian Suicide song.)
Do You Remember Me and Hang On, both penned by Canadian guitar hero Kevin Breit have a country feeling to them. Ms Tollar conveys the lyric sincerely and simply with the warmth and closeness of someone sitting next to you.
The results of Ima are an elegant mix of modern jazz and world music created by sophisticated instrumentation, electronic and acoustic instruments with an old and new world twist. It is a mature statement from an artist well respected by a few and soon to be many more. (As of yesterday Ms. Tollar was nominated for a JUNO award amongst Molly Johnson, Elizabeth Sheppard, and Nikki Yanofsky)
Sharron McLeod
© 2009
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