beautifully crafted arrangements in beguiling variety and sensuousness. Miss Verbrugge
addresses each with the breathtakingly, absolutely natural and unaffected purity of her voice, heard in
every lovingly caressed phrase. This is a stunning debut album for Angela Verbrugge. Simply stunning!
How could it not be when Miss Verbrugge ignites The Night We Couldn’t Say Good Night by blasting off
into the appropriately rarefied atmosphere of Bebop with her proverbial nod to the great Eddie
Jefferson and Jon Hendricks? “I’m Running Late”, Miss Verbrugge’s own composition (with pianist Ray
Gallon), is an effervescent and racy opening song.
- Raul da Gama, Toronto Music Report
Conspicuously good taste! Verbrugge possesses a winsome, brightly burnished, pliable voice, ample
emotional intelligence, and considerable songwriting skills. With top-notch accompanists—Ray Gallon
on piano, Anthony Pinciotti on drums, and Cameron Brown on bass—she delivers 13 songs, including
four originals, that cover a lot of territory on her debut album... offering a wide-angle look at her
manifold talents without feeling forced or showy. With so many smart decisions and memorable tracks,
I’m eager to hear what Verbrugge does next.
- Andrew Gilbert, JazzTimes Magazine (Apr 2019 print edition)
...a literate and articulate song-writer as well as a fine singer. It’s not every day that Will Friedwald
writes liner notes so he must like Angela Verbrugge, four of whose originals grace this 13-track album. I
like to see this disc as a kind of narrative arc in which themes of love, longing, loss, and the question of
time are ever-present companions. It’s no surprise, surely, that the disc opens with a head-spinning
original called I’m Running Late and ends with her own How Did I Know This Was The End? An album
with a bold, delineated - though often quizzically narrated - structure is a rare thing to find. ...well-
selected and finely performed songs. Verbrugge is a literate and articulate song writer, as well as a fine
singer, and someone to catch if she’s in your neck of the woods.
- Jonathon Woolf, MusicWeb International
Listen and be delighted. Her art is her own, and she offers rare pleasures.
...You can hear that Angela is certainly imaginative, but her singing rests securely on deep emotional
understanding. She understands the song, not only as notes and syllables on paper, but also the heart-
messages it sends us. She conveys tenderness, thoughtfulness, wit, and ardor: emotions and
perceptions aimed right at us through her very human voice, its phrase-ending vibrato signifying a
sweet earnestness. She is a witty songwriter, drawing on Cole Porter, Gilbert and Sullivan, and Johnny
Mercer for inspiration and rapid-fire rhymes, occasionally resembling a less vinegary Dave Frishberg. I
will feel much better about this decade when I hear new singers take up her songs . . . as well as
modelling themselves on her warm, lively approach. Those aspiring artists will take their own paths to
passion and control, how to convey deep meanings without resorting to capital letters and bright
primarily colors. But those wise enough to take inspiration from Angela will find her art won’t outwear
its welcome. I am not the first to celebrate Angela Verbrugge, nor will I be the last.
- Michael Steinman, Jazz Lives
Angela infuses passion and emotion with each beautiful note.
- The Jazz Music Blog, Australia
Angela lets her stunning vocals soar. The Record Journal
- THE RECORD-JOURNAL, Meridian, CT
James Pasinski (JPSMusicBlog)
...beautifully patient and timeless. Eponymous Review
- EPONYMOUS REVIEW
Laurie Fanelli, founder (Chicago, IL)
...with a vocal sound that’s bright and optimistic and also full of depth and nuance - welcoming the
light but without denying the existence of the darkness. ...I for one, am glad that the door opened and
Angela Verbrugge came through it.
- WILL FRIEDWALD in his liner notes for The Night We Couldn't Say Good Night
Music writer (The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, Playboy), author of nine books including Jazz Singing,
and the award-winning A Biographical Guie to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers. He is a curator for Apple
Music.
Show less