Eliana Glass - E (Shelter Press)

*** This review first appeared in TSMM's April 28th Newsletter, where you can get all the tips (and more) first ***

If you’ve been paying attention to the blog and playlists you might have already picked up on Eliana Glass. If not she was born in Australia, moulded in Seattle and has been in New York finishing school for a while, where she studied jazz voice and also fortunately bumped into TSMM fave Francis Harris who helped record E, her debut LP on the ever great Shelter Press imprint. If that fortuitous/well chosen path wasn't enough she's also a dab hand at the piano, which she taught herself by ear when she was a child.

Refreshingly she doesn’t seem to worry too much what her peers sound like and even has a fondness for seamlessly melting the sounds of some age appropriate electronic equipment in to the sparse, languid percussion, upright bass and thoughtful piano, which are all perfectly weighted to elevate, not distract from the undoubted star of the show - Glass’ distinctive vocals, as she gives the classic jazz sounds of last century a personal twist or two.

"Good Friends Call Me E" sees Glass take a thoughtful, somewhat unnecessarily melancholic considering her age, trip down memory lane into the world of no longer used nicknames. “Shrine” muses on life’s chance encounters via a mellow, fairly well worn vocal jazz course albeit with some great vocal layering lest you think you’ve heard it all before.

Alongside her originals Glass also hints at her eclecticism and inspirations. Carla Bley’s “Sing Me Softly Blues” gets reimagined, there’s a pretty far out take on Annette Peacock’s “Dreams” and “Emahow” is a languorous, treacly tribute to Ethiopian pianist, composer, and nun Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou.

Whether it’s her original compositions or tributes to less heralded greats, Glass just digs that bit deeper and twists those familiar sounds that bit more to deliver surely one of the most compelling jazz vocal, and perhaps even jazz releases of this year. Late night, a quality tipple in hand and lean forward listening recommended.