(Vocal jazz) Madeline Eastman - A Quiet Thing - 2012, MP3, 320 kbps

A fearless improviser who seeks out equally intrepid collaborators, San Francisco jazz singer Madeline Eastman strips a lyric bare to reveal unspoken secrets and unanticipated meanings. With the intensity of a torch singer and the chops of a post-bop saxophonist, she’s forged a singular approach unlike any other vocalist on the scene, in what the Los Angeles Times describes as “a consummate, inventive, endlessly entertaining
artist at work…a prime example of what jazz singing in the 21st century can be.” Her new collection of ballads, A Quiet Thing, a ravishing duo album with pianist Randy Porter, captures an artist rising to new heights, offering a master class in the art of improvisational storytelling. Eastman possesses an uncanny gift for communicating emotional insights with sophisticated, truthful phrasing that mainlines straight to the heart. She combines an alluringly lustrous sound with an in-the-moment ethos that turns every song into an uncharted journey prompting JazzTimes Magazine to describe her as “an inveterately unpredictable traveler who never fails to take us to magical places.” Exploring a delightfully diverse array of material, including haunting movie themes, unaccountably overlooked standards, and transformative interpretations of Sondheim, the Beach Boys, Chick Corea, Randy Newman, Alec Wilder, and Laura Nyro, A Quiet Thing captures Eastman’s startlingly intimate musical partnership with Porter. It’s a high-wire collaboration between equally fearless improvisers who treat songs less as launching pads than as living texts ripe for reinvention.
Eastman’s confidence stems from a lifetime devoted to jazz. Born in San Francisco, Eastman became enamored with the music at 18, first fascinated by Billie Holiday. She spent the next decade tracking down a series of pianistic mentors, working extensively with Bay Area jazz stalwarts Flip Nunez, Smith Dobson and Paul Poyten. She listened deeply to Miles Davis, particularly his mid-'60s quintet. Among vocalists, her prime inspiration is Carmen McRae, one of jazz's most incisive lyric interpreters. “There's the holy trinity – Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Carmen McRae – and for me, Carmen was it. Her singing was so truthful and it landed right in my heart,” Eastman says.
Inspired by jazz vocal legend Betty Carter’s Bet-Car Records, Eastman and fellow Bay Area jazz singer Kitty Margolis launched their own record label, Mad-Kat Records in the late 1980s, a time when only a handful of jazz artists were producing themselves. She made an international splash with her 1990 debut “Point of Departure,” featuring trumpet great Tom Harrell. She quickly followed up with 1991’s “Mad About Madeline,” an even more impressive session with pianist Cedar Walton, altoist Phil Woods and special guest Mark Murphy. But it was her third release, 1995’s “Art Attack” that fully unleashed Eastman’s creativity. The album features a bevy of cutting edge artists, including pianist Kenny Barron, Turtle Island String Quartet and Tony Williams, whose dynamic, churning drum work sparked a creative epiphany.
“It was so exciting for me,” Eastman recalls. “Our very first take in the studio was ‘Gypsy In My Soul’. The band didn’t hold back because I was a singer. I finally felt like I was one of the cats. It was what I’d been looking for my whole musical life, musicians who wouldn’t coddle me, but would expect me blow. My eyes filled with tears. It was a musical turning point for me, and from that record on I had a more developed and individual concept. I found my authority, my voice. ”
Eastman’s snowballing musical maturity is evident on her first duo album, 2001’s “Bare,” another collection of stunning ballads with the late great Los Angeles pianist Tom Garvin, a highly sought after pianist who also put in significant stints with Carman McRae, Peggy Lee, Lou Rawls and Diane Schuur. Eastman first met Randy Porter about a decade ago when they were both working at the Reno Jazz Festival. “There was an instant chemistry,” she says. They started working together and first documented their collaboration on 2009’s critically hailed “The Speed of Life” with the superlative rhythm section of bassist Rufus Reid and drummer Akira Tana. Next was Randy and Mad’s only live recording, “Can You Hear Me Now?” with a rhythm section that included Matt Wilson. Stereophile Magazine describes Eastman as “hitting from beginning to end, sizzling and snapping with electricity, sliding across bar lines, scatting choruses, slowing to a whisper, bending melody line to her will. She is IN CHARGE.”
For over 20 years, Madeline Eastman has been steadily and consistently raising the bar for what modern jazz singing can be. And it’s on full display on A Quiet Thing. Like any great work, A Quiet Thing bears repeated listening for its freshness, intensity and honesty. Madeline Eastman should be a household name for anyone who is interested in true vocal artistry.

Recently one of the sports channels delivered a segment about a deep sea diver who plummets into and ascends from ocean depths unaided by air tanks. He does it all on his own breath. In that documentary, the diver speaks about the peak life experience he encounters with each daredevil dive. The metaphors of adventure, heightened experience and certainly depth and breath, of course—are quite apropos applied to Madeline Eastman as A Quiet Thing is a terrific recording and an aural experience.
Long considered one of the finest vocal stylists on the jazz scene, A Quiet Thing is Eastman's second ballads-only duo recording. Here, the California-based songstress pairs with pianist Randy Porter over 14 gorgeously performed selections. And, while it's difficult enough for any one artist alone to achieve excellence of this level in a performance, when two artists individually reach that summit and top that by interacting at that heightened level, the result is simply other-worldly.
Eastman's is a voice of significant character and emotional substance; it's two hands held out beckoning us to join her on her escapade into lyric, dynamic and phrasing adventure. Hers is an instrumentalist's phrasing, a savvy player's sense of volume, lyric and dynamic. More Carmen McRae than any other, Eastman handles the perfectly-selected tunes gorgeously. Even those selections which are most familiar commercially ("Alfie" "Pick Yourself Up," "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most") are executed at bar-raising emotional level. With all due respect to other jazz vocalists who dwell in standard GAS and bossa fare, Eastman's work with more sophisticated material ("I Remember" "Sea Journey," "I Think It's Going to Rain Today") puts A Quiet Thing almost beyond reach.
Pianist Randy Porter is equally superb here. He is the perfect complement and compliment to Eastman's unique interpretations. His breadth of touch and dynamics mirror and enhance Eastman and never detract or distract. His harmonic range is pure Impressionistic palette. His is a consistently intelligent, cooperative approach in every manner. Porter's accompaniment could be played alone and it would shine as a Equatorial sun.
A Quiet Thing further validates Madeline Eastman's stature as one of jazz's most talented song-stylists.

Madeline Eastman: vocals; Randy Porter: piano.