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Suzanna Smith

A debut album by a smart jazz singer with a lithe, lissome sound is always welcome, but when the artist is also a strikingly effective songwriter, a celebration is in order. With the release of Halfway Between Heaven & Love, Oakland-based Suzanna Smith delivers one of the year’s most impressive vocal projects, an intoxicating mix of original tunes and beautifully rendered standards.

Accompanied by some of the most creative figures on the Bay Area scene, Smith combines the confessional imperative of a singer/songwriter with the rhythmic acuity of a jazz chanteuse. She wrote the lyrics for nine of the album’s 13 tracks while collaborating on the music of five songs with pianist/keyboardist Michael Coleman. Smith’s material more than holds its own alongside the American Songbook gems.

Recording an album focusing on original songs wasn’t Smith’s initial game plan. Long tempted to release a session of standards in response to requests by fans, she ended up taking her time and working steadily with a core group of players. Without quite realizing what she had accomplished, she gradually honed a program of emotionally incisive tunes featuring her well-crafted lyrics. “It was very intentional, but kind of an accident,” Smith says. “From the first rehearsals it took about two years until we finally went into the studio. I’ve been so busy performing, and mostly when I perform I don’t do this material. So I was chipping along at this and I didn’t realize what I was building up. It allowed me to turn around and be pleasantly surprised.”

The album opens with a graceful bebop medley as Smith’s clever lyrics link Tadd Dameron’s “Lady Bird” and Miles Davis’s “Half Nelson.” Featuring the album’s core trio with Coleman, bassist Brandon Essex, and drummer Hamir Atwal, the piece immediately establishes Smith as a singer of rare poise and presence. While it isn’t always obvious, more than half the CD showcases her originals, songs that often feel like jazz interpretations of classic pop tunes.

A sassy affirmation of love, “Paper Boat” surges over a rollicking groove buoyed by Michael Coleman’s organ, while Rob Ewing’s growling trombone and Jordan Glenn’s fills on washboard contribute earthy textures. Smith fell in love with Coleman’s tune “The Man That Broke the Dragon’s Heart” and added a lyric that turns his evocative title into a sweet but sad parable guided by Michael O’Neill’s serpentine clarinet work.

One might be surprised to discover that “Planes and Trains” isn’t a tune from a 1940s Hollywood production. A gentle ode to the lightning-strike transformative power of romance, the loping ballad is one of Smith and Coleman’s most winsome collaborations. “Comet,” on the other hand, pulses with 21st-century urgency, offering a soliloquy of regret and self- recrimination to a bouncy groove accented by the fiery strum of Ken Husbands’s bouzouki.

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Album Review

Suzanna Smith: Halfway Between Heaven & Love

Read "Halfway Between Heaven & Love" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Oakland-based vocalist Suzanna Smith states that she is, ..." always looking for ways to play within the boundaries of a song's 'container,...' I think of songs as rooms and the longer you live in them, the more you can move about without bumping into things. I love when I reach that point with a song." She illustrates this aurally in her carefully considered standards like Legrand and Bergman's “Summer Me, Winter Me," King, Young, and Van Alstyne's “Beautiful Love," and ...

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Oakland-Based Vocalist Suzanna Smith Debuts Nov. 19 With "Halfway Between Heaven & Love"

Oakland-Based Vocalist Suzanna Smith Debuts Nov. 19 With "Halfway Between Heaven & Love"

Source: Terri Hinte Publicity

Suzanna Smith has been a creative force on the rich Bay Area jazz vocal scene since 2005—as a performer and songwriter as well as founder/producer of San Francisco’s long-standing Savanna Jazz vocal jam session and co-founder of the nonprofit Bay Area Jazz & Arts, Inc. Her constant efforts to nurture local jazz have redounded to the benefit of many artists, including Smith herself. With Halfway Between Heaven & Love, to be released by the singer’s Ink Pen Records on November ...

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