(Vocal Jazz\Soul\Rhythm and Blues) Eden Atwood and the Last Best Band - Wild Women Don't Get the Blues - 1996, WavPack (image+.cue), lossless

American jazz singer Eden Atwood's show 'Wild Women Don't Get The Blues' will no doubt prove to be a highlight of the forthcoming Adelaide Cabaret Festival. She has the pedigree (her father wrote and arranged for the likes of Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Stan Kenton), a great voice and the right philosophy in her approach to jazz, live performance and breaking down of musical genres to include more than a few pleasant surprises in her choice of programming.
Atwood is equally at home with Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington as she is with her virtuosic and effective treatments of music by the 'Stones, Randy Newman and Aretha Franklin. Here is a voice that masters not only jazz, but also rock, soul and rhythm and blues to great and individual effect.

Talking with Eden from her home in Montana we touched upon the genres and philosophies of jazz and cabaret, Diana Krall and the record industry's approach to jazz, and her own approaches to performance and repertoire. Eden Atwood is a singer gifted with great intelligence, total identification and passion with her work and a fine voice that owes as much to Etta James as it does to Billie Holiday and Carmen Macrae.
Atwood feels that although she gathers material from a variety of oft-unsuspected sources that her work is still very firmly centred in the jazz tradition. "What I do is adapt modern rhythmic feels like hip-hop and funk and still improvise in a new and fresh kind of way. It's worked great and it's very freeing."
On the contemporary jazz situation, Atwood has much to say and she says it in a forthright and informed manner. "I think that there's a mass sort of idea of what jazz is and many things fall under that heading. Many people think that Kenny G is jazz. Many think that Michael Feinstein is jazz. Diana Krall, Michael Buble... I would say that Michael Feinstein is more of a cabaret artist in the Bobby Short tradition." Atwood had a residency in a Chicago club co-owned by this artist earlier in her career... "I think that true jazz will always be around but it really takes big ears and an understanding of jazz philosophy in order to hear it. The performance aspect is secondary. The primary thing is the fine material whether you're writing it yourself or re-interpreting it in a way that's funking it, that's improvised in the moment. Genuine and honest - without filter or artifice.

"I guess I'm sort of proselytising," she offers. "And that was the challenge when I started doing other material whether the Fifth Dimension or The Rolling Stones. These songs have to resonate with me and they do because they're from my childhood. I have placed them in a jazz context where solos are improvised. I never sing them the same way twice... some of the stories I use to introduce the tunes may be similar because a story is a story but I don't have rehearsed stage patter. Sometimes it's great and I'm very articulate or the village idiot [laughs] - but at least it's honest."
On the matter of unrehearsed stage patter, I recalled having seen Barbra Streisand in Sydney. It was a great show but everything - the lyrics and the patter were posted on teleprompters.
"I just wonder how much you truly show of yourself if you have a net like that. I think what's exciting about performing is not having a net so that you have to improvise. You have to sing it in a new way. Even if it's not as good, people can tell that you're droning on, doing it the way you always do it. 'Here comes the high note. Let's pull on everyone's heartstrings'."
According to her "the really great jazz and cabaret singers let you see who they are as performers. They craft a show that has tunes that they have chosen for very specific reasons, which have something to do with their souls. Frivolous and fun is also good too. My show is not maudlin. I express as much about my soul through singing Aretha Franklin's Baby I Love You as I do with God Bless The Child."

Thinking on the differences between jazz and cabaret Atwood feels that cabaret "has more of a theatrical edge to it and I'm a huge drama queen! Early in my career, because I was singing in a club that was co-owned by Bobby Short, reviewers would ask 'Is she cabaret? Is she jazz?' I try not to stay hemmed in. Rules and jazz don't really go together."
But with jazz superstars there are problems. "That's the problem with Diana Krall. If you saw her show, in a year's time it would be much of the same material... Her new record, I've heard it (much of it was written with new husband Elvis Costello). I think all of it is terrible. I admire her for trying something new.... But the point with Krall is that her level of fame interfered for years with her progression as an artist because she didn't want to alienate her fans. She was trying to sell records but she had all these record executives pulling the strings telling her 'You gotta do it like this!'. My ex-boyfriend was in her band for a long time so I kind of got an up close look at her life. There was amazing pressure."

Eden Atwood, vocal & percussion
Bob Nell, piano
Craig Hall, guitar
Greg Loughman, bass
Bryce Jarrett, bass
Brad Edwards, drums, percussion & synth

- Eden Atwood - Turn Me Loose
- Eden Atwood - Waves. The Bossa Nova Session
- Eden Atwood - This Is Always: The Ballad Session
- Eden Atwood - There Again
- Eden Atwood - A Night in the Life
- Eden Atwood - No One Ever Tells You
- Eden Atwood - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
- Eden Atwood and the Last Best Band - Wild Women Don't Get the Blues