Kelley Johnson - Home [CD]

Kelley Johnson sings the blues and swings deeply through feisty soulful arrangements by Geoffrey Keezer, Ingrid Jensen, John Hansen and many by Kelley herself, revealing why Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Center recently selected Kelley as an ambassador to represent the heart and soul of American jazz in the Caribbean Basin and Central America. With her chocolate rich wistful sound and her top shelf band mates this group takes US inside the songs making new modern classic jazz by pairing "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" with Abbey Lincoln's "Living Room," hypnotizing US with groove on "The Sweetest Sounds" and seducing US with longing in the Gil Evans-like "Moon River." James Knapp's abstract blues "Home" sizzles and haunts US with Johnson's own lyric.