(Vocal Jazz, Smooth Jazz) Rhonda Redden - Woman in Bloom - 2009, MP3, 320 kbps

I was raised in Oklahoma and moved to Seattle when I was still wet behind the ears. I stayed for 25 years, but I always knew I was just visiting. I thought of Seattle as a long vacation. I returned home as often as I could to walk my family’s fields and feel the wind on my face. I have finally moved back below the Mason Dixon line, where I can once again hear Morning Doves, thunder and native American drums.
While in Seattle I sang with a big band, fell in love with a really groovy guy, had two boys and three dogs, a cat and a rabbit. How DID I find the time to be a musician? I played and sang in church, where I managed to scandalize one preacher out of four and a few parishioners by bringing rock and rap into church. Hey, a girl’s gotta have fun!
Now-a-days I go on road trips and perform in small town America where the sidewalks roll up at dusk and the sight of the moon and stars at night takes your breath away.
I want to thank my friends Trish and Michelle for telling me I should cut an album for a decade. You know how much I love you and admire your talents and skills. Thanks to my friends Sandy, Karen and Mare in Bartlesville for sharing long walks with the dogs, Saturday morning lattes and spur of the moment roads trips.
A special thanks to Jung Song for lending his considerable skills to the album, and to Sandy Dice for letting me use her photographs for the album. And finally, thank you Danny, Joshua and Blair for being the rock in what is sometimes the storm of my life. ~Rhonda Redden

One of the musicians who recorded on this album said, "I see myself in a big leather chair, feet up on an ottoman holding a brandy snifter and cigar in front of a blazing fire." Personally, I thought of reading on the couch in front of a blazing fire.