Andrea Superstein: "One night"

There is something to say about contemporary jazz culture. Whilst in the roaring twenties and dirty thirties, jazz found itself on top of North America's musical shoulders (and the billboard album charts for that matter), however, after the second "Great War", its audiences began to diminish. Today, jazz fans and musicians alike find themselves in a tight-nit community, that spans both national and international borders. Its to this wonderful community that we owe the success of this blog, for we're not only reaching large audiences around the world, however, we are reaching the musicians who fill our ears with the sweet sound that we call jazz, as well. This leads us into today's post...When we were first contacted by Andrea Superstein to review her debut album, "One Night", we were rather excited... Not because of the usual thrill of receiving emails from our readers, but rather, we were excited because we saw the goal of our blog being achieved. That is, to help get the names of our talented Canadian jazz artists out there...and where is there? Well, that can only be decided once these musicians get their feet through the door, and that is exactly why this blog was started in the first place. So lets start off by telling you a little bit about this vocalist. Born in Montreal, Quebec, Superstein now resides in Vancouver, British Columbia, where her career began to buzz a couple years ago. She made her debut performance at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival in 2010, which led to a Galaxie Awards nod in the category of Emerging Talent. Naturally, this has all cumulated into the highlight of her career thus far, her debut album, "One Night". So without further adieu, lets start off with some personel. The album includes Andrea Superstein on the vocals, Jen Lewin in the keyboards, Budge Schacte on the guitar, Joseph Lubinsky-Mast and Adam Thomas on the bass, Andrew Peebles on the drums, and John Korsrud on the trumpet. "One Night" is made up of ten standards in which Superstein has uniquely adapted traditional performances to her modern vocal style. The first song we're going to note is the arrangement of The Beatles' "I Will". On this tune, Superstein does a wonderful job, appropriately arranging an iconic pop song into a jazz setting. The song also features a tasteful solo on the part of Lewin. The next song we're going to note is the arrangement of Django Reinhardt's "Nuages". This arrangement features a duet including Superstein and Schacte. Superstein delivers a masterful performance, shedding light on her years of training in vocal technique and speech articulation. Getting back into the original subject of this post, contemporary jazz culture, Andrea Superstein succeeds in utilizing "One Night" as a musical outlet, that does justice in two ways: Firstly, it succeeds in the realm of innovation and moving jazz forward. However, secondly, and most importantly, it succeeds, as has been proven already, in bringing people together in our tight-nit community, and thus, rather perfectly, helping to restore jazz back to its original glory.

Purchase "One Night"

Andrea Superstein