A jazz standard can be sung by just about anybody, and it will still get under your skin (if you like the song) but when a voice like Dawn Aitken sings a standard, well, it’s like you’re hearing it for the very first time. Hers is a smoochy, mellow, deep and fruity sound that sends tingles up and down the spine; a made to order honey-kiss.
Memories of a twenty-something Cher, if only Cher had focused on jazz, but then she’d be knocked off of any throne by a youngster like Aitken, so lucky for Cher.
My favourite tracks at this time are “Love Potion #9” an old favourite that deserved to be reborn by someone as gifted as Aitken, and the eternal tear-jerker “Over the Rainbow”. I like the free and breezy jazzed up version of “Over the Rainbow”, it says nothing about the original artist ( Saint Judy of the Stage Mother) and reminds me of the writers Harold Arlen & E.Y. Harburg. The craft in the words and music show.
Sometime’s I wonder if people read my reviews thinking-he likes everything-well I do have taste, and I am critical when I come up against something that needs more work, or something that lacks some element. There’s nothing really to criticize in this case, unless I split a couple of hairs…so why not?
Dawn Aitken could side step away from jazz and try singing some show tunes, it couldn’t hurt-and the way she owns each song makes me think she could approach some of the Shakespearian sonnets, stitch them to some music and sing them. In fact she could probably sing a grocery list and make it sound hot!
I wonder if she will ever get down here to Australia, Canada isn’t that far away-maybe the Byron Bay Jazz Festival…I don’t know, but I do know she’d get a very warm reception here because she looks good, sings well and sound like a very hip woman.