OMG! That’s today-speak, I gather, for yesterday’s WOW! Still three letters but still apropos to describe Denise Donatelli’s What Lies Within. From the bright and very pro opening “My Shining Hour” into the so smooth “Sails,” which in addition to making one sit up and listen (as does this entire album), encourages you to get up and dance. Throughout the entire CD this exemplary melodic artist is constantly easing the music forward. Phrasing, pitch and placement are impeccable. In opera, close attention is paid to legato (line) and portamento—the movement from one note to another: not so far afield a genre to parallel considering, for example, the attention-getting neo-baroquesque instrumental concomitance (the accompanying musicianship throughout the disc is integral, gratifying and slyly surprising) to ”Four Walls” will attest. Ms. Donatelli brings these arts to her art in a subtle, simple Sarah Vaughansian second or two in the longest cut, “Like an Old Song” and seems to seamlessly scat toward the end of “Beloved” so naturally that it might as well be part of the lyric, which in itself is always constantly and cogently considered and caressed.

As they like to say at curtain calls in NYC at the Met—22nd Street or 67th— brava!

Noah Tree
Cabaret Scenes
September 2009
www.cabaretscenes.org