(Vocal Jazz) Rondi Charleston - Signs of Life - 2013, MP3, 320 kbps

Signs of Life celebrates an inevitable merger – Rondi Charleston the storytelling journalist and Rondi Charleston, the songwriting vocalist. After leaving her first career as an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning investigative reporter (working with Diane Sawyer on Prime Time Live), the Juilliard voice/theater graduate released two albums on Motema, In My Life (2009) and Who Knows Where the Time Goes (2011), each revealing her ability to dive deep into the heart of the matter and bring each emotional nuance to the surface. Now, with the release of Signs of Life, Rondi more fully bridges her personal history from storytelling journalist to story-creating songwriter. Five original songs signal this transition as her own “signs of life.” Once again, she works closely with guitarist/music director/co-producer Dave Stryker, teaming with him on four original tracks, while Stryker and his wife, Tynia Thommasie, contribute another. A final “bonus” is from the collaboration between Charleston and Fred Hersch on the coda for Hersch’s score for a documentary film, No Place on Earth. The remainder of the album is filled with inspiring and celebratory covers from Wayne Shorter, Paul Simon, Thelonious Monk, Randy Weston and Antonio Carlos Jobim. With Stryker steering the band, Charleston receives stellar support from Brandon McCune (piano), Ed Howard (bass), Clarence Penn (drums), Mayra Casales (percussion), and guest turns from Gregoire Maret (harmonica) and Ted Nash (tenor sax).
The original songs are filled with life-affirming symbols. “DNA” (Charleston/Stryker) references the double helix, “about the thirst we each have to understand our own make-up.” Stryker’s guitar adds to the singer’s warmth, to the wonder inspired by science, nature, and experience. The image of an hour glass figures in the symbolism of the title track, Charleston’s first as both composer and lyricist and inspired by the imagined history of her 19th century home. Gregoire Maret is a perfect partner to carry out the harmonic and melodic blueprint, while Ed Howard’s bass also adds a lovely background.
Two of the Charleston/Stryker collaborations are related to life experiences that proved to alter a personal world view: “How the River Flows” (featuring Ted Nash) recounts Rondi’s Costa Rican river journey with her husband and daughter, when all ended up in the swirling current; it’s ultimately about the joy of survival. This track also highlights Brandon McCune’s flowing piano. “The Wind Speaks” was inspired by a hot air balloon ride, conveying the feelings of weightlessness and awe as well as our responsibility to our planet. Maret’s harmonica seems ideally suited to the sensation of floating above Earth and a “race with history,” while Rondi soars through the odd time (11/4) with grace and ease. Themes of survival at both a personal and evolutionary level flow through “The Cave Knows”; Rondi penned the lyrics to the closing of Fred Hersch’s music for a film about the survival of Jews in a system of caves in the Ukraine during World War II. Howard’s bowed bass adds dark memories of the “evils of the world,” Rondi providing the prayerful meditation on the “gift of life” and “hunger to survive.”
Rondi wanted to include some “heavyweight jazz standards.” With Shorter’s “Footprints” and Monk’s “Reflections,” she found logical ties to the “Signs of Life” theme in the lyrics of Chris Caswell and Jon Henricks, respectively. “Footprints” provides some of the albums instrumental highlights, particularly from Stryker and Nash; Rondi voices the theme before stepping aside, then overdubbing her own harmonies. Howard and McCune stand out on “Reflections,” each dancing with Rondi in an “eternal waltz.”
The remaining tracks are more simply joyous celebrations. The Stryker/Thommasie “In These Hours” has a southern tilt and the haunting glow of fleeting light, a metaphoric “shadow dance” that seems to be the upbeat companion to “The Cave Knows.” Paul Simon’s “Spirit Voices” offers tropical rhythms and the feeling of a community festival; the Randy Weston/Jon Hendricks “Babe’s Blues” puts Howard again on display, transitioning logically into Jobim’s “No More Blues” ( “Chega de Saudade”) which Rondi covers in English and Portuguese, aided by Mayra Casales’ percussion. Life is good. And so is this album, a triumph as an intimate celebration of life through its lyrics as much as through its music--but it is the music that brings these signs to life. The significance of Rondi Charleston, the singer-songwriter, is her ability to put her voice (and words) in the listener’s ear with just enough drama to make her story essential and memorable.