About This:
Cathy Rocco doesn’t merely swing (and swing hard), but she swings with ingenuity, not just singing fast but with a keen sense of drama and the full awareness that drama is not only how one interprets the text, but a personal arsenal of narrative devices and even tricks that can be applied (like those described above) to the melody. As the opening track here, “Autumn Leaves", shows, she intelligently uses a hint of scat singing here and there as a way of enhancing the tune, rather than taking us away from it. The first few songs take us through a palette of different musical moods: “Come Rain or Come Shine” is a spiritual reincarnation and extensive overhaul of the famous Nelson Riddle arrangement (sung both by Judy Garland and Rosemary Clooney). For one thing, it’s a big arrangement, with the full string and woodwind orchestra, made even more exciting by use of a underlying Latin polyrhythm and countermelody. Yet in some ways the chart and the performance couldn’t be more different – there’s a distinctly contemporary sensibility here, and nothing remotely retro about either one. They are each true to the present time and place, yet are, at the same time, firmly grounded in tradition. The same is true for “Daydreaming,” one of the few songs credited exclusively (words and music) to Aretha Franklin, by herself, alone. Ms. Rocco retains the key elements of the Queen of Soul’s original hit arrangement (on her Grammy-winning 1972 album, Young, Gifted And Black), most notably the choir of back-up voices repeatedly chanting a mantra behind her. She retains just enough to allow the song to be recognizable – but otherwise changes everything that isn’t nailed down. In a sense, this is the reverse of her approach to “Autumn Leaves”; there, you don’t realize what song you’re actually listening to until rather late in the game. Here, at first you think Ms. Rocco and company are merely “covering” an R&B hit, but when you listen more closely, you realize that they’re reinterpreting and personalizing virtually everything about the song, except its most obvious surface features. Cathy Rocco’s treatment of “For Once In My Life” is the last thing we would expect from her at this point, except in that she is increasingly conditioning us to expect the unexpected. This is a song that’s been interpreted in a lot of diverse ways, from traditional pop giants, like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, to soul stars like Stevie Wonder and The Four Tops. Yet none of them have done what Ms. Rocco has done with it, which is to treat it as a straight-up ballad. Ms. Rocco is a formidable swinger, as on the medium tempo, lightly-Latin romper, “There Will Never Be Another You,” which also utilizes subtle seasonings of scat. She also has a big voice that’s made to order on big, anthemic arias like “You’re Gonna Hear From Me” one of the best out-sized, self-congratulatory songs of an out-sized, self-congratulatory era in American pop. Further, she is superb on the basic blues, as on the declamatory “Give Me One Reason” and the more resigned “Little By Little.” Still, she may be at her absolute best on slow, luxurious ballads, particularly with verses, as on the aforementioned “For Once In My Life” and “Tea For Two”; the latter is normally a jolly bit of roaring ‘20s frivolity; here, Ms. Rocco and her colleagues transform it into a searing emotional manifesto.