Milman, in “love”
Thursday, January 21, 2010 14:57
By George Varga | SignOnSanDiego.com
Can an expatriate Russian Jewish jazz singer, who immigrated to Israel as a child with her family and now lives in Canada, find happiness by mixing vintage swing, bop and Brazilian-tinged music with jazzy versions of classics by Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt and Paul Simon?
Absolutely, in the case of Sophie Milman, who performs here Wednesday at downtown’s all-ages Anthology. Now 28 (or 33, depending on the source) and recently married, Milman sounds equally inviting whether she’s caressing a ballad, riding on top of a sultry samba beat or saluting and building on the rich vocal traditions of some of her idols, which include Carmen McRae, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Dianne Reeves.
Her fifth and latest album, “Take Love Easy,” finds her singing with increased assuredness and maturity. Rather than over-emote or launch into empty technical displays, as many young musicians tend to do by nature, she lets each note she performs breathe and resonate for maximum effect.
Milman is still rooted in the Great American Songbook, as she demonstrates on her new album with loving renditions of chestnuts by Duke Ellington and Cole Porter. But she also offers ingeniously fresh takes on such disparate songs as Simon’s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” and Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire” (the latter having never been covered by any jazz artist I can recall).
By virtue of her ravishing, movie-star looks, Milman was initially lumped into the so-called “jazz babes” movement that followed in the wake of Diana Krall’s rise to stardom. Happily, she is much more than just another pretty face with jazzy pretensions and minimal vocal abilities. A star in the making, Sophie Milman does her music and her country — or is that countries? — proud.
* Wednesday, January 27, 2010, 7:30 p.m.
* Anthology
* $10 – $33
* Buy Tickets
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