Gretchen Parlato@Musician’s Institute 01.21.12
By George W. Harris

Jazz Bakery owner Ruth Price hasn’t found a permanent home, but she’s
put to good use the Musician’s Institute Concert Center just a stone’s
throw from Hollywood Boulevard as part of her “Moveable Feast” of jazz
shows. This night, the packed house was captivated by one of the few
vocalists that can truly be labeled a “jazz singer,” meaning that
Gretchen Parlato doesn’t rehash the Great American Songbook with a few
moments of improvisation, but she actually interprets material from the
jazz canon, as well as her own post-bop compositions, which impressed
the audience just as much.

Teamed up with the elastic and flexible trio of Sam Harris/key-p,
Harish Raghaven/b and Mark Guiliana/dr, Parlato used her lithe and
floating voice like Wayne Shorter would play his soprano, floating over
and around lyrics to her own “Within Me” and “Holding Back the Years”
with a mix of exploration and elegance. On material like Herbie
Hancock’s “Butterfly” and Shorter’s “Ju Ju,” Parlato and company was as
tangential in harmonics like a late 60’s Blue Note session, with her
wordless chants gliding over the Sub-Saharan percussion like a warm
breeze, while on the samba “Alo Alo” her sweet tone mixed well with the
earthy interplay in the rhythm section. The most fascinating part of
her delivery, whether it be a jazz standard like “Blue In Green” or her
closing “All That I Can Say,” is that it seems that she’s singing as a
stream of consciousness, barely conscious of her surroundings , yet her
inflections, rhymes and timing betrays that sensibility. She’s totally
free in spirit while keeping in a rhythmic jazz groove, no small feat
in this day of machine-stamped American Idol chatty Kathy’s. Don’t miss
this ex-Angeleno next time around.