CD: Veronica Swift

Vocal sensation Veronica Swift took the jazz world by storm with her critically acclaimed 2021 album, This Bitter Earth. She landed on the cover of DownBeat, topped year-end lists for vocal releases and wowed audiences with her versatile stage show at the Hollywood Bowl and beyond.

For her new album - aptly titled "Veronica Swift" - the versatile artist spreads her wings and opens up her wide range of influences to show who she really is: a one-of-a-kind singer with unabashed confidence.

Veronica Swift's new eponymous album, her third for Mack Avenue Records, is a masterful coming-out story. Her previous albums, "Confessions" (2019) and "This Bitter Earth" (2021), put her in the top league of early 21st-century jazz singers for her virtuosic brilliance, interpretive ingenuity, powerful songwriting and sophisticated arrangements. In short, Swift is not only one of the most dazzling singers of her generation, but also one of the most versatile.

While her first two albums solidified her position in modern jazz, Veronica Swift shows that she is more than a jazz singer, exploring French and Italian opera, European classical music, bossa nova, blues, industrial rock, funk and vaudeville. She accomplishes the feat without making the result sound stale or corny. Swift's expansive artistic voice remains untouched regardless of genre.

Swift describes this personal artistic statement on her new album as "transgenre." "I grew up as a jazz singer. Because of the connection I have with my parents, I felt obligated to maintain and perform that music," she says, referring to her parents - jazz singer and educator Stephanie Nakasian and pianist Hod O'Brien. "But what I don't often get to show people is that as much as I'm rooted in that tradition, it's not really my music. I always wanted to sing rock. That was the music that sparked my passion, as well as soul and other genres. But I wanted to do it my way."

For the album, Swift enlisted Brian Viglione of punk cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls to join "Swift" and Mariano Aponte as drummer and C0 producer. Also on board is a motley crew of musicians. The album opens with a flamboyant rendition of Jerry Herman's "I Am What I Am" from the Broadway musical "La Cage aux Folles." Swift imbues the infectiously swinging tune with irrepressible joy, especially when she launches into a sublime scat excursion that segues into a Johann Sebastian Bach-inspired fugue. For Swift, the song becomes an affirmation of artistic freedom....