The
sounds of hot jazz and swing conjure images of a long-lost world of back-alley
speakeasies, frenetic dancers, bathtub gin and tommy gun-toting gangsters.
Monday night regulars at New York's Back Room, where Svetlana & The
Delancey Five have held swinging court for more than three years, know that the
world isn't quite as lost as it may seem (minus the gangsters and with booze
made in more sanitary conditions).
With the
release of Night at the Speakeasy, produced by Grammy® Award-winner Guy
Eckstine and co-produced by drummer Rob Garcia, the rest of us finally have the
chance to revel in the sounds of the Delancey Five and their Moscow-born
chanteuse, Svetlana Shmulyian (Eckstine called her "Astrid Gilberto via
Moscow"). This is no strict throwback band, however; the repertoire on
their debut album combines swing-era classics with modern pop songs by the
Beatles and the Beach Boys, and original tunes from the pen of Svetlana and her
bandmates, who are also noted for their work in the straightahead and modern
jazz worlds. There's even a tune by the Russian-German trumpeter/composer Eddie
Rosner sung by Svetlana in her native tongue.
"No
other band on the hot jazz and swing scene would do a song in Russian,"
says Svetlana with considerable understatement. "I'm interested in songs
in any genre. I wanted to write and record songs that you could dance to but
that you could also listen to on the radio, in the car, or wherever. It's music
that makes you smile."
Indeed,
it's hard to suppress a grin when Svetlana's sweet, winsome tones intertwine
with the warm, gravelly voice of legendary trombonist Wycliffe Gordon. Over the
years that Svetlana has been performing on the New York jazz scene, Gordon has
become a mentor and collaborator, contributing several arrangements to Night at
the Speakeasy along with singing and playing on the album. "Wycliffe has a
natural chemistry with the band," Svetlana says. "He's truly one of
the most professional, supportive musicians and band members that I know. He
behaves like a soldier in an army that I lead, and then when he steps out the
whole room lights up in a different color."
Gordon
joins an all-star band that includes drummer Rob Garcia, a bandleader on the
modern Brooklyn scene as well as an in-demand sideman (Wynton Marsalis, Anat
Cohen, Woody Allen, Vince Giordano, Dianna Krall); Australian-born reeds player
Adrian Cunningham, (lead alto saxophone for Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks,
Wycliffe Gordon, Professor Cunningham and His Old School); trumpeter Charlie
Caranicas (Independence Hall Jazz Band, the Karrin Allyson Group, Chico
O'Farrill's Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra); master ragtime and stride pianist
Dalton Ridenhour (Bria Skomberg, Vince Giordano); bassist George Delancey
(Winard Harper, Christian Howes, Richard Galliano, Aaron Diehl); and guitarist
Vinny Raniolo (longtime collaborator with Frank Vignola).
Every
Monday the band plays for a packed crowd combining swing dancers, jazz
aficionados, and those Svetlana refers to as "jazz curious" at the
Back Room, one of only two speakeasies from the days of Prohibition still
operating today. Located behind Ratner's Deli on Delancey Street (hence the
name of the band), the clandestine bar was purportedly the haunt of such
underworld notables as Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano.
Since
forming in the spring of 2012, Svetlana & The Delancey Five have gone on to
consistently sell out a number of renowned New York jazz venues including the
Blue Note, B.B. King's, Ginny's Supper Club, Zinc Bar, City Winery, and Kitano
while maintaining their home base at the Back Room. The band has also become
one of the most in-demand features at the numerous sold out hot jazz and swing
events (Prohibition Production, Gemeni & Scorpio, Times Square flashmobs
which consistently draw hundreds of attendants) - as well as secured
residencies in popular Brooklyn spots whereby seamlessly integrating into the
thriving Brooklyn music scene. It's an interesting culmination of the story of
a Russian girl who grew up singing, studying piano and classical vocal, singing
in traditional Russian choirs - but, at insistence of her family of engineers,
studied a more practical subject of mathematics.
It's not
an immigrant story that begins in hardship, however. "I had a fabulous,
happy childhood in the dark concrete buildings of Moscow," Svetlana
recalls. "I have a great family and I guess that's where it starts and
ends - it doesn't matter where you are or how long you have to stand in line to
get bread and butter. I come from a family of nerds and engineers and the reality
of becoming a full-time artist seemed really far-fetched, but in my heart of
hearts I always knew I was an artist."
However
after completing her mathematics degree with high honors in Moscow - Svetlana
enrolled in Moscow College of Improvised Music and Jazz. Still the scholarship
landed her in New York - where she arrived with one suitcase and a guitar on a
crisp autumn day. Soon thereafter she
was playing occasional gigs by night. It wasn't until the late 2000's that she
turned her full attention to being a musician, after forming a band for a
summer music festival. "I was immediately hooked," she says. "We
do this because we couldn't imagine our lives without it. The exhilaration of
coming together with other musicians and producing this most abstract work of
art, there one minute and gone the next, keeps you wanting to go back so
badly."
After a
few years singing in a variety of contexts and languages, Svetlana fell into
the hot jazz and swing circuit, finding the exhilaration in singing songs she
listened to on old LPs since she was a kid and feeling highly energized by
singing for mixed audiences of listeners and dancers. In a way that style
harkened back to her earliest jazz experience, when she took her school lunch
allowance to a Moscow department store determined to buy the album with the
highest number of songs, whatever it was. That ended up being 30 By Ella, Ella
Fitzgerald's 1968 recording of a half-dozen medleys arranged by Benny Carter.
Through
the auspices of the Back Room, Svetlana formed the Delancey Five in 2012. She
began writing her own songs at Wycliffe Gordon's behest, and in 2013 enrolled
at the one of the most prestigious and demanding graduate jazz vocal
performance programs, the Manhattan School of Music, where she studied vocal
performance with Theo Bleckmann, Gretchen Parlato, and Kate McGarry, and
composition and arranging with Jim McNeely and Phil Markowitz. The band
regularly joins forces with a DJ collective for an electro-swing series, The
Speakeasy Sessions for large-scale vintage-inspired soirees in warehouse-style
venues of the Lower East Side and Brooklyn.
Svetlana is also a frequent featured vocalist of several New York based
big bands (George Gee, Seth Weaver, etc).
Svetlana's vintage-inspired swing appeals strongly to both dancers and
listeners - be that at a high brow jazz club or an underground Brooklyn
speakeasy. The band's "magnificent
energy" (noted by the collaborator, Wycliffe Gordon) reflects the magic of
"social music" which goes to the very root of how swing became
popular in 1920s and why it is on the uprise again today - in that every live
performance creates a strong connection between the band and it's audience that
consumes the music with their minds, their hearts, and their whole bodies. As Will Friedwald states in the record's
liner notes, this may be the reason why "Svetlana will be singing it and
leading one of the major bands in the idiom for some time to come".
Upcoming
Svetlana & The Delancey Five Performances:
Jan. 15
/ BBKings / New York, NY
Nov. 20
/ Shapeshifter Lab / Brooklyn, NY
Dec. 15
/ MTA Subway Swing Party / New York, NY
Dec. 25
/ Zinc Bar / New York, NY
Jan. 11
/ Mezzrow Jazz Club / New York, NY
Jan 13.
/ Urbo Gotham Club / New York, NY
Svetlana
& The Delancey Five Weekly Residences:
Monday /
Back Room / New York, NY
Wednesday
/ Bedford Hall / Brooklyn, NY
Svetlana
& The Delancey Five · Night at the Speakeasy
Origin /
OA2 Records · Release Date: January 15, 2015
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