Denise Capezza

A late bloomer due to her focusing on parenthood and an earlier career with CNN, vocalist Denise Donatelli has continued to develop with a depth of feeling and a broad musical palette open to exploring many styles of jazz. Her fourth CD (and third for Savant) finds her again with pianist/music director Geoff Keezer and guitarist Peter Sprague, with a supporting cast that varies from track to track. Donatelli puts a new twist on the standard "All or Nothing at All," buoyed by Keezer's catchy, Afro-Peruvian arrangement, and potent solos by Keezer and acoustic guitarist Ramon Stagnaro.

On her 2005 album for Endeavour Classics, cellist Denise Djokic explores currents of folk songs in works by composers as diverse as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Robert Schumann, Leos Janácek, and Gaspar Cassadò. The unifying plan is apparent in her choice of Vaughan Williams' pastorally flavored Six Studies in English Folk Song (1926), Schumann's rustic Fünf Stücke im Volkston (1849), and Janácek's sweet Fairy Tale (1910). Less obvious, though, are the folk song elements in Cassadò's fairly abstract Suite for solo cello (ca. 1950); and the inclusion of Igor Stravinsky's brilliant Suite Italienne (1932) – adapted from the ballet Pulcinella, and based on themes by Pergolesi and his eighteenth century contemporaries – seems outside Djokic's survey, except for the use of secondhand material.

Philly-based vocalist Denise King was doing just fine with her late-blooming career as a lush, soulful interpreter of standards. Then she met French pianist-arranger-composer Olivier Hutman. They initially teamed a dozen years ago in Paris, but it was their delayed reunion in late 2009 that proved the catalyst for King’s advancement to a richer, more rewarding level of artistry. After a couple of European tours, King and Hutman united with bassist Daryl Hall, drummer Steve Williams and saxophonist Olivier Temime to record No Tricks.