Tag Archives: Joe Herrera

Lena Seikaly's second album shows off her skills as a composer, arranger and vocal improviser. Courtesy Nestor Diaz

Editor’s note: This is the second of four album reviews being published over the course of two weeks, spotlighting new releases from some of our favorite D.C. jazz musicians.

Given Lena Seikaly’s firm grounding in harmony and composition, it’s no surprise that a musician sharing the bandstand with her once remarked on a harmonic progression she’d written: “Man, those are some lovely changes!” The phrase struck a chord and emerged as the title of her second recording.

On Seikaly’s new album, her second, there are Lovely Changes in more ways than one. The album presents a constantly shifting harmonic and rhythmic landscape in which familiar jazz classics by Cole Porter, Frank Loesser and Jerome Kern co-exist alongside Seikaly originals and unexpected arrangements of more contemporary songs by Elliot Smith, Brian Wilson and Amie Mann; a touch of 1967 Antonio Carlos Jobim bridges the gap. Seikaly’s cool, classic jazz voice breathes a cohesive beauty into the recording, the release of which she celebrates with a show this Sunday at Blues Alley. Her vocals are complemented by the savvy arrangements and sensitive musicianship that she and her band mates put forward; the group is comprised of Dan Roberts on piano, Tom Baldwin on bass and Dominic Smith on drums.

The opening ballad, “Amateur,” written by the rock musician Amie Mann, emerges as a swing waltz. With a slow tempo and sophisticated, world-worn lyric, the song could easily have been a Burt Bacharach/Dionne Warwick classic. Next, the brooding ballad, “Memento,” an original composition by Seikaly, takes us to an earlier era with the tenor sax of Elijah Jamal Balbed providing an appropriate after-hours ambience. Continue reading →