BWW CD Review: Avery Sommers YOU'RE GONNA HEAR FROM ME Should Be Heard

The second you know you're listening to an album of standards being performed by Avery Sommers, you kind of say to yourself, "Oh, it's classics." While, yeah, it's classics - after all, Avery Sommers is a classic, and she has been since she stepped onto that stage in 1978 as Nell Carter's replacement in Ain't Misbehavin' (a song she sings on this album, thank goodness). The singing actress has been doing the Great American Songbook and Broadway her entire career, which is why most of the songs on YOU'RE GONNA HEAR FROM ME are from those catalogs... but even if the songs were brand new, original compositions, she would make them into classics, simply by virtue of the work ethic, style, training and talent that comes with being in the business for more than a couple of years. Fortunately for everyone, especially those who care for the standards and the show tunes, these are mostly songs you already know and love. But they aren't necessarily performed in the way you know them... at least, not entirely.

There's an inherent refinement that comes with songs by Gershwin & Gershwin, by Styne & Cahn, by Arlen & Mercer - refinement that goes well with Avery Sommers. If you've seen her club act, though, you've also seen that Avery Sommers is more than a little sassy, sometimes bawdy, very straightforward and that she pulls no punches. On this album, she is all of that and more, providing a fusion of jazz and gospel on "I Love Being Here With You" and a frenzied, conga'd up "That Old Black Magic", not to mention a bluesy honky-tonk vibe for "T'aint Nobody's Bizness..." that will leave you breathless. And there are recordings here that go straight-up traditional, like the one that mashes up Fats Waller with Gershwin. What's really exciting on the album, though, are the recordings that bring the classic Avery Sommers into a modern-day feel, say, along the lines of Oleta Adams and Anita Baker.

Several of the tracks on this ten-song CD eschewed the use of a piano, in favor of a keyboard, with some percussion here, some horns there, and a vibe best described as "Nineties sex jazz" - now, don't be coy, you know what I'm talking about. And it's a good thing, here. Avery Sommers' ability to bend her vocal quality and acting skills to the needs of each arrangement is one of the reasons this album is so much fun to listen to. Avery dives deep into a new exploration for her title track, avoiding belt and brass in favor of wistful and introverted, and she really surprises with a clever Easter Egg to be found in the middle of her "It's The Talk of the Town" treatment. The sound, the mood, the whole thing really works for Ms. Sommers in a refreshing, exciting way. Nothing, though, provides the thrill of hearing something in a new way as Avery Sommers' mesmerizing reinvention of the song "My Funny Valentine" - one of the most original (and sexy) arrangements the song has ever had, not in 83 years. Indeed, the nineties easy-listening thing works for Avery Sommers so well that it wouldn't be at all objectionable if the classic singing actress were to go back into the studio just to record an entire album of sultry music for after midnight.

All classics, songs and singers, are timeless and welcome, especially as trends evolve, and if there's anything Avery Sommers has proven during her show business tenure, it is that she is up for that evolution - or any evolution. This is an artist, a performer, a woman of distinction, and when you put those three things together, you're usually going to get something worthwhile, something of substance, something exciting. That's Avery Sommers all over the place.

Avery Sommers You're Gonna Hear From Me is a 2009 release on the Avery Sommers label. It is available on Apple Music, iTunes, YouTube Music, Deezer, and Spotify.

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