BWW CD Review: Jessica Vosk's A VERY COCO CHRISTMAS Surprises and Satisfies

It would be a mistake to judge Jessica Vosk's new EP by the cover art because Michael Hull's gorgeous photo and, indeed, the album title itself do not represent the musical experience in store for you when you hit the play button on your device. Ms. Vosk, one of the new divas of music, and deservedly so, has a very specific sense of humor for which she is well-known, not only in her social circles but to her fans and followers; she holds nothing back when it comes to entertaining through mirth and it is pretty apparent that there is absolutely nothing that she wouldn't do to make someone laugh. The cover art for A VERY COCO CHRISTMAS is fierce, it is fabulous, it is filled with attitude and sass, it represents Vosk's glamor and her edge, it is slick, sleek, sexy, and chic and it announces, ever so loudly, that you are about to hear a Christmas EP designed for a diva who is going to rock your world.

Your world will be rocked... but not in the way you think.

A Very Coco Christmas is the most beautiful, tender, wistful, romantic, reverent, spiritual, delicate, emotional, and personal musical journey you are likely to find in a Christmas recording this year. Now, don't misunderstand me - there is one riotously raucous track on the recording, but even that made this writer cry, and I'm happy to tell you why.

I learned of Vosk's EP yesterday when her Facebook post announced that the recording shares a name with a Floridian rap singer who is already raising a stink about having to share the title with the Broadway star, and even though it was my night off, I investigated the release and learned it would drop sometime around midnight, a bit late for someone who rises at four am, so I went to bed feeling like a kid on Christmas Eve. When I awoke, there would be a lovely Christmas treat awaiting me. So, during my pre-dawn bike ride, I had Jessica Vosk singing to me courtesy of my earbuds (not something I would do during the daylight, but in Central Park at five am it seemed perfectly acceptable). I did not get the diva treatment that I was expecting. Absent was the Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Kelly Clarkson, Kylie Minogue mood for which the cover art had prepared me. Instead, I was treated to back-to-back performances of "O Holy Night" and "River" so resplendent, so pure, so divine as to make me actually feel - something that the numbing effect of the year 2020 has stolen from me. Jessica Vosk is a woman with a big voice, one that she has used in big ways, but she wisely avoided the temptation to let that become what this recording is about. Through scrupulous placement of musical notes, impeccable diction, absolute honesty, and visceral vulnerability, Ms. Vosk lays all the cards, musical, emotional, and artful, on the table so that the listener might take away from her performance that which is most essential to them at the time they hear it. She has used her artistry in an act of selflessness, becoming a conduit that draws out of the observer the emotional experience most needed in this moment in their life. It is a powerful choice that many musical entertainers leave on the back burner - trusting the source material, then using one's own talent to bring that material to the light - and Jessica Vosk proves herself to be not only a mistress of the music but a savvy storyteller with song, by choosing the material over the pyrotechnics. It is a move from which many musical artists could learn.

A Very Coco Christmas consists of two ballads and one gravity defying (see what I did there?) up-tempo (I listened on Spotify and there is a bonus track, non-holiday related - a moving rendition of Sting's "Fields of Gold") and while many singers would have made the choice to start the recording with the up-tempo, Vosk saves it for dessert, surprisingly kicking things off with a stunning "O Holy Night" that (truly and genuinely) made this devout atheist long for a time, decades ago, when the Christmas season flowed freely with spirituality. The afore-mentioned up-tempo that wraps up the CD is a challenge every diva wants to take and that Ms. Vosk handles with the ease of cutting into an ice cream cake with a hot knife (dudes, it's so good that it made me cry out of respect for Vosk's accomplishment). In between these two god and goddess-oriented tracks, Jessica brings home a heartfelt and heartbreaking rendition of "River" that may just make you forget every other version of the song, except for the original. In fact, the word original is one that is appropriately applied to this recording because every one of these songs is one so famous, so well-known, so widely loved that people may feel like they don't need to hear a new recording of them; Jessica Vosk is an entertainer so original, so determined, so uncommon that her own interpretation of Streisand's "Jingle Bells!?!" becomes as valuable a musical confection as Barbra's, recorded fifty-three years ago.

So don't judge this book by its cover. Enjoy the beauty of Jessica Vosk as captured photographically by Michael Hull, and then enjoy the mini-musical journey created by Jessica and her crackerjack musical team (see the screen-grab of her thank yous). Both wonderful and both enjoyable, the album and the cover art are both worthy of praise and worthy of attention. They are also worthy of your patronage, so if you are listening on Spotify, please enjoy the free music, and then buy a copy to give as a gift. Please consider buying hard copies or digital downloads of the artists releasing music at this time - they don't make money off of Spotify and they are greatly in need of our industry at this time. When you buy from the artists you can give a holiday gift to your family and to the artists you love in one simple act of holiday generosity.

Jessica Vosk A VERY COCO CHRISTMAS is a 2020 release on the Vosky Records label and is available now on Amazon, Apple Music, and other streaming platforms.

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