Laurie Antonioli: Press

"Laurie is truly one of my favorite singers; she's full of wonderful ideas, has an instinctive musicality, a great sense of humor and is an inspiring improvisor and collaborator."

Bobby McFerrin


"Laurie is the most talented singer I've ever had the pleasure of working with. She is a very important creative voice in jazz music. As a singer of improvised music and jazz, she is a piano players dream."

Richie Beirach

"Laurie is one of my all time favorite lyricists. Her singing is exquisite - she lives in her beautiful low tones…her sound is completely unique."

Nancy King

"Laurie's distinctive voice, unique artistic perspective, emotional depth and burnin' improvisational skills assure her a place as one of the very best jazz singers alive today. A major talent."

Kitty Margolis

"When a girl of 17 or 18 wakes up in the morning and can start right off with a horn-like bebop solo, I know the bop angel has been at work again…that was Laurie Antonioli and she's still doing it."

Mark Murphy



"Laurie is the embodiment of the true spirit of jazz - probing, penetrating, burning with the white-hot intensity of a Plugged Nickel Miles Davis. She blows my mind. Laurie is hard-core."

Ann Dyer

"In a world increasingly populated by singers who are jazz-flavored stylists at best, Laurie Antonioli stands out as the REAL deal. She's a true jazz explorer who's not afraid to take risks as she reaches deep into the improvisational essence of the music."

Bud Spangler, Jazz Radio Host, San Francisco, California

Fono Forum
Germany
November 2004
CD of the Month – “FOREIGN AFFAIR”

FROM SAN FRANCISCO TO GRAZ

This debut is actually a comeback – and a most welcome one at that. It began with American singer Laurie Antonioli’s move from the San Francisco Bay Area to Graz, where she recently entered on a professorship in vocal jazz – as successor of no less prominent vocalists than Mark Murphy, Sheila Jordan, Andy Bey and Jay Clayton.

But Laurie Antonioli is no blank page, either. She can count Mark Murphy, Bobby McFerrin and Joe Henderson among her mentors, with the pianists George Cables and Joe Bonner she made her first records almost twenty years ago. Then she withdrew from the music scene for personal reasons and redirected her energies to teaching. Which is what brought her to Graz – a stone’s throw from former Yugoslavia, where her father’s family came from.

Yugoslav-Balkan music and the Serbo-Croat language were part of the soundtrack of her early childhood in California; she came to know and love jazz through her grandma’s Louis Armstrong records. While at high school and college she expanded her musical horizons towards modern jazz, singer/songwriting, folk and world music. In Graz she’s found a chance to bring all these strands together.

It’s there she met the Serb bassist Nenad Vasilic, who already brought out a very fine Balkan Jazz album in 2003 („Joe Jack“, Nabel 4693), and made him the mainstay of her own band. Three pieces on the new album are from his pen, among them the melancholy, tango-like opener “Ballad for Djole”, for which Laurie Antonioli wrote original lyrics. The band is completed by the Albanian guitarist Armend Xhaferi, the New York percussionist John Hollenbeck and the Munich saxophonist Johannes Enders, who has long since established himself as one of the most versatile jazz musicians on the German scene. Here he reveals one more facet of his talent, fitting right into the project and genre on hand.

So, this is an international line-up with a definite Balkan emphasis. The recordings were made in an analog studio in Slovenia; for the mix, Laurie Antonioli succeeded in getting the American engineer Jay Newland, who won a Grammy for his work with Norah Jones. The effort paid off: the album breathes warm, purely acoustic sound and an intimate atmosphere. This setting shows off the dark, sensuous timbre of the leader’s voice to best advantage.

Laurie Antonioli chose the songs to fit a theme of separation by borders, oceans and distances and the longing for such barriers to be dissolved. Musically the singer straddles the boundaries between styles and cultures, folk and jazz traditions, Eastern Europe and America.

She takes from the jazz repertoire of Joe Henderson, providing his “Black Narcissus” with a Serbo-Croat text (“Crni Narcis”) and Keith Jarrett, scatting to the pure groove of his “The Cure”. She combines the folk-song-like „Where Flamingos Fly“ to the Traditional “Black is the Color” to make an American folk-jazz medley. Not many artists can combine all these elements as organically and originally as Antonioli, who in two of the pieces also documents her talent as a composer. Anyone who would like to experience the singer live has the opportunity to do so at the Unterfahrt in Munich on 30 October and in Birdland in Vienna on 7 November.

MUSIC *****
SOUND *****

Jazz Podium
January 2005

Between the tradition of the Great American Songbook and the better class of pop song there's no shortage of women singers – some acclaimed as new divas while others, measured against Ella & co, are found wanting. But only a few women are carving out new paths of a contemporary vocal jazz. Laurie Antonioli is a Californian with Montenegrin ancestors, now a university teacher in Graz, who is able to weave classic jazz singing, modern instrumental-sounding vocalizations and elements of Balkan folk into a valid vocal language of her own. Her influences are not only such diverse singers as Louis Armstrong, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Bobby McFerrin und Mark Murphy, but also include instrumentalists like Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Keith Jarrett und Joe Henderson. She made her debut on albums of pianists George Cables („Soul Eyes“, 1985) and Joe Bonner („New Beginnings“, 1987), and after that, family and teaching interests took priority. With the dark timbre of her voice she can converge with the bass sound of Nenad Vasilic or equally, in higher registers with the fine, sweetly sculpted lines that Johannes Enders produces on the soprano sax. The whole recording lives in the matured sound of an uncluttered instrumental lineup. Antonioli carefully selected the collaborators for her distinctive project: Johannes Enders, individualist on saxophones, Nenad Vasilic, tersely phrasing Serbian bassist and co-composer, Armend Xhaferi, Albanian guitarist who works with bending techniques from blues and country, and John Hollenbeck, the stylistically adaptable percussionist from New York. Highlights are the tracks where Antonioli enjoys extended scats, oriental-mystical and deftly rhythmic on Vasilic's "Tschusch Chochek", bluesy on Antonioli's own "I know you" and entranced-swinging on Keith Jarrett's "The Cure".

LAURIE ANTONIOLI AND RICHIE BEIRACH-
THE DUO SESSION
JAZZZEIT MAGAZINE
DECEMBER 2005
5 Stars

You could think of the “well-aged” duo recording of Laurie Antonioli and Richie Beirach an exquisite bottle of wine (vintage 1992) which sets free the essences of standards and originals from Miles Davis, Ivan Lins and Richie Beirach himself (“Nightlake”, “Elm”). Laurie Antonioli is well-known for composing her own lyrics, with which she goes beyond simply the musical level, offering the listeners another association to the music. Her alto voice, connected to Beirach’s lyrical playing, creates timeless music, conjuring up the intimacy of a private conversation in the studio.

The past and the present hand in hand, Antonioli’s lyrics mirror, and introduce new ideas to, Miles Davis’ “Flamenco Sketches” and “Blue in Green”. Beirach follows her thoughts in a melodically structured way, accompanies and allows them to shine like musical diamonds

ALL ABOUT JAZZ
Jim Santella
The Duo Session
Recorded in 1992 in San Francisco, this session of piano/vocal duets features a silky-smooth singer in performance with an expressive pianist. Their warm, endearing approach brings you into their circle with open arms and a heartfelt embrace. Together, the two artists interpret moody standards, hip reflections, and searing originals with candor.
Laurie Antonioli's clear alto voice and extensive vocal range allow her to express ideas and emotions freely and accurately. What she's thinking is what comes out naturally. Partnering with Beirach, she's confident and convincing. Richie Beirach's consonant harmonies and lush undercurrents provide a kind of acoustic depth that fills the room. His shadows cast far and wide. Each piece finds the pianist as musical partner to the vocalist, sharing in the experience with a lot to say.
They give “Green Dolphin Street” a moody texture and “Flamenco Sketches” a dreamy whirl. Miles Davis had passed away the year before this date, and he was surely looking down from above with a smile. The session runs solemn and moody, befitting the legacy that the trumpeter left behind.
Beirach and Antonioli collaborated on several original numbers, pouring the same heartfelt emotion into each one. They prefer slower pieces that allow ample room for patient expression. Their “Memories, Dreams & Reflections” summarizes the performance through its creative infusion and unique duet interaction.
Today, Antonioli is head of the Vocal Jazz Department at KUG University in Graz, Austria and Beirach is head of the Jazz Piano Department at Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy in Leipzig, Germany. They're working together again in live performance. It's time they recorded a few more duo albums to let a worldwide audience enjoy the spirit of their work. Surely any followup to this highly recommended album would feature the same wholesome music.