JAZZ 2K: CD PICKS OF THE WEEK | Nippertown.com

Written by J Hunter

Sometimes the teaming of an artist and a producer sparks an alchemy that truly makes gold rain down from the sky. That’s what happened when vocalist Denise Donatelli got together with keyboardist-arranger-producer Geoffrey Keezer, and Soul Shadows is the third in a series of glowing gold nuggets that has come from their partnership. Donatelli famously said she “can sing anything,” but what she should have said was she can sing anything and make it her own – and I mean anything: Donatelli hits a Latin-flavored tango take on the standard “All or Nothing at All” out of the park before Shadows is even a minute old, but two songs later she’s having fun with the self-deprecating humor of Pomplamoose’s YouTube hit “Another Day.” Keezer loves to throw curveballs at Donatelli, too, so he serves up the doomed romance of “A Promise (Someplace Called Where)” which mixes Wayne Shorter’s music with Dianne Reeves’ lyrics, and then takes us back to Brazil through the disc’s title track, which Bill Withers recorded with the Crusaders way back in the day; Keezer literally dreamed of dong the latter piece as a bossa, and the results are impeccable. So’s the duet Donatelli and New York Voices’ member Peter Eldridge perform on Eldridge’s dysfunctional family portrait “Postcards and Messages”, which Keezer wraps in a lovely classical/jazz tapestry. Soul Shadows hits you with moment after moment of singular beauty, each one wrapped in a beautifully crafted package that’s a joy to open. May Donatelli and Keezer keep creating together, because everything they’ve given us is rich with light and heat, and that is very cool.