At 85, extraordinary jazz pianist Barbara Carroll is branching out. With her latest Grammy-worthy album, Something to Live For, this foremost lady of American song proves she has a lot more than a well-tuned piano to keep her at the top of her game. Her genius is all there in this must-have disc recorded live at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola at Jazz at Lincoln Center leading an exceptional trio, joined by Ken Peplowski on some tracks. Having started at The Downbeat on legendary West 52nd Street (also known as Swing Street in the day) in 1947, she burst onto the scene with a trio opening for legendary trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. Some sixty-plus years later, she’s still stopping shows with her unique fusion of sensitivity and hip wizardry, and on this moving album which also pays homage to Duke Ellington.

Unlike some jazz divas who prance through jazz sets like they were showing off a hat at the Kentucky Derby, opting for style over substance, she is the real deal. Few artists commit to the composer’s intent more than Barbara Carroll. Few have her musical sensibilities and unerring good taste. Any young jazzers starting out need only listen to one of her recordings to know how high she has raised the bar. And that standard is on luminous display here. Starting with the opening cut with greats Jay Leonhart (bass) and Alvin Atkinson (drums), she reinvents something as flighty as “All I Need Is the Girl” from Gypsy (Styne/Sondheim). With this trio, it magically becomes a festively cohesive, in-depth master-piece of hidden inflections and twists. This is her signature: reinventing the simplest tune and turning it into something rhapsodic. For years, she has excelled as a key interpreter of Billy Strayhorn. His “Lotus Blossom” is definitive here in a duet with Peplowski. A transcendent reading of the album’s title cut leaves the listener breathless. Incorporating Gershwin’s Prelude in C Sharp Minor (“The New York Prelude”) with Bernstein/ Comden/Green’s “Lonely Town” (On the Town) is about as perfect as it gets.

John Hoglund
Cabaret Scenes
June 2010
www.cabaretscenes.org