On 9, vocalist Carmela Rappazzo returns to the same territory she explored on her critically-acclaimed 2023 album, Whispering. It’s her ninth release and second featuring mostly original music.
Since moving to New Orleans after a long career in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere, Rappazzo has taken advantage of the deep well of local talent interested in exploring jazzy original music. Paul Sanchez is a co-writer and vocalist. Glenn Hartman of the New Orleans Klezmer Allstars plays accordion. Jazz bassist Jasen Weaver provides a solid, understated bottom to these mostly wistful, slow tempo compositions. Musical director Russell Welch’s sympathetic guitar underpins some of the cuts.
Rappazzo enlists various less-heard instruments as well, including cello, piccolo trumpet and bass clarinet. Ace engineer and mixer Rick Nelson of Marigny Studios adds vibraphone. It’s an eclectic cast of musicians and a unique sound.
The duet, “Too Much in Love,” with Sanchez on vocals, captures Rappazzo’s perspective on her new home and her romantic sensibility: “Could be the weather and the heat/ Plus those pot holes in the streets/ Looks like the Saints are gonna suffer defeat/ In the past you would curse/ All the stars up above/ Not these days ’cause you’re too much in love.”
Rappazzo writes some of the songs, others are co-written by Sanchez, Welch and cello player Chris Beroes-Hatgis. “Jackie’s Dilemma,” a jaunty cut by Rappazzo, features Hartman on a stuttering accordion.
The album includes two covers including Spencer Bohren’s “Travelin’,” which features Mark Carroll on pedal steel guitar. Bob Dylan’s “Simple Twist of Fate” opens with gently-picked strings before Rappazzo’s vocal comes in. The arrangement is slow, understated and minimal—all to the wondrous effect of showcasing her clear voice and Dylan’s timeless lyrics.
9 is a grown-up effort from a singer comfortable in her own skin. She reflects on a lived life with all its joys and warts. It’s personal and honest, as any original creation needs to be.
—Jay Mazza
Ever sat in a concert audience and started to wonder about the backstories of the people in the crowd? From the sound of things, locally based jazz singer Carmela Rappazzo has too: Her songs on this album tell the deepest secrets of these characters and evince one of the basic truths about songwriting: The more you’ve lived and the more you’ve sung, the more you realize that love is endlessly complicated.
Musically she’s settled somewhere between jazz and cabaret: though there are a dozen musicians on this disc, there’s no drums or piano, and not much guitar. Instead, the arrangements of cellos, clarinet and accordion create a film-noir feel that suits the narratives. As a singer she maintains a certain cool, not quite detached but free of over-emoting; she wants the feelings to come through unvarnished. Since she’s drawn to the grey areas of romance, it’s no surprise that the Dylan song she picks to cover is “Simple Twist of Fate,” where she connects with the lyric’s evocative twists.
There are a couple of lighthearted songs here including Spencer Bohren’s jaunty “Travelin’” and “Too Much in Love” a romantic romp that she sings and wrote with Paul Sanchez (she’s a sometime-member of his Rolling Road Show). But it’s the darker songs that really take hold, including “Twin Mornings” (whose lovely melody recalls Brian Wilson’s work on Pet Sounds) and “That Time They Felt True Love” (about a perfect couple that never connects). The highlight here is the long and languid “Vulnerable These Days,” where the understated vocal and slow arrangement are the essence of sweet misery.
—Brett Milano
