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fmw
Audioholic Ninja
Actually, I view her sound as very traditional as jazz goes. She would have fit in just fine in the post bop era. We normally call rock-like jazz fusion and she is certainly not a fusion player. She plays mostly old standards and torch songs. She has been enormously successful in getting pop music listeners interested in jazz and deserves serious kudos for that. The reason, I think, is that she is a good singer and she sings good songs. That's usually a pretty good combination.
Most of her recordings use acoustic bass and acoustic drums. When she has a jazz guitar it is electric but so have most jazz guitars been for the past 1/2 century or so. Her trio and quartet are just like most trios and quartets you would find at any jazz club. She plays a Steinway acoustic piano. I'm not a purist. I like all kinds of jazz including fusion, latin etc. etc. I just don't like the technicians to boost the level of the string bass beyond where it should be in a jazz ensemble. It doesn't enhance the recording and it doesn't make it appeal more to non jazz listeners. It just fouls up the overall sound of the ensemble. The bass is critically important to jazz music. You'll find it in almost every jazz recording ever made. It should sound right and shouldn't dominate the soloists. That was my only point.
