Irene & Her Latin Jazz Band, A Song Of You

A SONG OF YOU (available at irenesings.com, cdbaby.com or iTunes.com)

Irene and Her Latin Jazz Band features a smooth-and-silky lead singer, top-flight South American musicians, and a group with the ability to turn a wide variety of different types of songs into their own unique brand of Latin jazz. Their second album, A Song of You, contains poignant-yet-accessible Latin jazz arrangements of tunes written by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Joao Gilberto, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter and Sting. In addition, the band includes several original tunes and also showcases a remarkable Latin version of a song made famous by Eric Clapton, ' Change the World. ' Irene and Her Latin Jazz Band are all about smooth sounds. You could dance to some of these numbers, but this act is more of a listening experience with the lyrics the focal point (although be aware that a few verses are sung in Spanish or Portuguese or French). There are a few differences here from their first album, which did not really utilize drums, but just percussion. This recording has a full drum kit as well as percussion. The first album had some piano playing, but this album seems to have quite a bit more, or at least the pianist seems to be featured more and given more moments in the spotlight. On about two-thirds of the CD the pianist is Rique Pantoja, supposedly one of the top keyboardists to come out of Brazil in recent years, and after reading his credits (Chet Baker, Santana, Ricky Martin, Luis Conte) he sounds legit (although, to confess, I had never heard of him). But his playing on this CD is superb, even if the players only get a few moments here and there to solo. Most of the time Irene is singing so the emphasis is on the song more than the individual players. In this way the music has more in common with vocal smooth jazz rather than traditional, straight-ahead jazz where the improvised solo is king. This album may not appeal to hardcore jazz fans, but for anyone who likes the ' Girl From Ipanema ' style of Brazilian-pop-with-a-jazzy-under-current, this is an album to add to your collection.