She's the Kats Pajamas!

What a wonder Kat Edmonson is. Not yet out of her twenties, she has forged a sound that is unique while it skims the surface of a boatload of musical references. After a few notes of hearing her, you'll immediately think Blossom Dearie. But other singers will come to mind as you continue to listen. Here's how Nate Chinen put it in The New York Times.

Trawling for a current reference point, you might come up with Madeleine Peyroux or Melody Gardot, or the softer side of Nellie McKay. Looking further back, you’d probably land on Blossom Dearie, who sang in the same girlish register as Ms. Edmonson, with a similar timbre and sublimated wit...
The singer relates in her biography that Nina Simone is a primary influence. One can hear Simone in the way that she leaps vocally from a light girlish tone to a full-bodied lower register to end a phrase. 


Her sophomore release, Way Down Low, has brought her much attention, especially from NPR and Steve Greenlee of The Boston Globe, who calls the album "one of the greatest vocal albums I've ever heard." Here's more of his gushing. 
...after listening to “Way Down Low” several dozen times over the past couple of months and never tiring of a single song on it, I say this with confidence: If Kat Edmonson were singing in the 1940s or ’50s, her name would be mentioned alongside those of Peggy Lee, Dinah Washington, Julie London, and Anita O’Day — maybe even Billie Holiday.

I'm not willing to go as far as Greenlee, but I will declare Kat Edmonson as a refreshing new supporter of the vocal tradition that he references. Let's think about this landscape for a moment.

You've got Michael Buble. Great sense of swing, he captures an audience longing for that Sinatra vibe while occasionally dipping into songs of a more contemporary vintage. Diana Krall is an accomplished pianist who tastefully renders standards and phrases beautifully. (I listen to her like I'd listen to Carmen McRae.) Madeleine Peyroux initially excited jazz listeners with her Billie Holiday-flavored voice, but she has carved out a niche designed to obscure that memory. Melody Gardot brings Peggy Lee to mind with her first two releases. Her catalogue doesn't feature many standards, but her songs resemble them. 

Kat Edmonson sounds like a singer from the sixties. (I was think of the TV show Mad Men when I'm listening to her. It must be not only the musical styles she employs, but also the melancholy that is at the heart of most of her presentation.) She's comfortable in the vernaculars of calypso, bossa nova, swing. In a chameleon-like fashion she threads through these styles, and then she puts the brakes on with very slow-paced renditions of Brian Wilson's "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" and "Whispering Grass", a song popularized by the Ink Spots. They are striking surprises in the musical program. You hang on to her words, and Kat never disappoints.

She's an accomplished songwriter who pens songs that sound like standards. "What Else Can I Do" begins with this imagery:

What else can I do

But to sit and think of you

And how love walked through that door

And moved boldly across the floor

But love's not here anymore

What else can I do?

Gershwin's "Love Walked In" comes immediately to mind with this inro. Or consider the opening of "This Was the One".

It wasn't planned

Taking her hand to cross the street

Was as natural a thing as he'd ever done

He knew what had begun

She was the one.

She was the one.

Isn't that lovely? No longer can I go around saying, "No one writes these sentiments anymore. Where is the love in the music you hear today? The refined and delicate feeling?" It's with Kat!

My only complaint about this CD is that it drags at the end. The last three tracks are very drawn out, and her slow delivery starts to grate. Kat must take care with her pacing, although she certainly did for most of the CD.

An electric new talent is here! Check out this elfin enchantress. You'll be gushing like Greenlee before long and thanking the Lord that the vocal arts are alive and breathing!

Here's Kat doing 'Lucky", the opening song from Way Down Low.

Also, here she is performing "Hopelessly Blue", also from the CD.

If you want a full shot of the Blossom Dearie influence, check out "Champagne". Every time I hear this song I can't help thinking that Kat was getting her Cole Porter on with this number. 

Finally here's Kat doing a slower version of "I Don't Know". It ends the CD on too much of a downer to my ears. Enjoyed the sprightlier version of the song when it first appears on Track 2.