Jazzy Me!

The entertainment business has always been vastly oversubscribed with artists; in popular music, for every even moderately well-known name, there are dozens, if not hundreds (or even thousands) of at least equally talented performers who have never gotten a key break that would have enabled them to make the charts and play large halls under their own names. Such an observation is inspired by Lucy Shropshire's debut album, a vocal jazz outing with the Brian Derek Trio. Shropshire has had a long journeyman's career in popular music, primarily as a singer in Reno and Las Vegas, and while one would be hard-pressed to say what it is that, for example, Diana Krall or Jane Monheit (to cite two essentially similar performers who had albums in the jazz chart when Shropshire's was released) have over her, she has spent her time in small clubs and touring productions of shows like Sophisticated Ladies rather than the big time. She has also worked as a vocal coach, and you can hear her expertise on her album. From its title, Jazzy Me!, to its musical arrangements, this is a disc that is pitched as a straight-ahead jazz effort. But jazz means improvisation, and while Shropshire puts her warm, rich voice through familiar contortions — some scat here, a modulation, melismatic passage, or substituted note there — she rarely sounds genuinely spontaneous. She enunciates precisely; when, for example, in "How Long Has This Been Going On?," a T is followed by a D ("...can't define...."), you hear each distinctly. It's excellent technical singing, but it marks her, despite the many vocal effects, as more of a pop singer than a jazz one. In distinguishing herself, the song selection does not do her many favors. It's hard to sing so many standards and really make them your own. (Someone should have advised her not to try "Over the Rainbow," perhaps the ultimate signature song.) In fact, she makes her strongest impression on the less familiar songs, notably Chick Corea's "500 Miles High," Michel Legrand's "You Must Believe in Spring," and Kenny Loggins' "I Believe in Love," which have not been performed and recorded as much. But these are quibbles. Jazzy Me! is the work of a singer who is just as good as her better known contemporaries who win Grammys and go platinum, and if she herself never gets a chance to do those things, she is likely to continue to improve the shows in which she appears.