Jazz Reviews : Jude Swift Shows Off Promising Talent at Bon Appetit

Add Jude Swift to the growing list of jazz and jazz-oriented female singers arriving on the scene in the late 1980s. Tuesday night at Bon Appetit, the singer-songwriter-pianist revealed a promising, if still evolving, talent.

Working with a back-up group (Brandon Fields, saxes; Tony Marotta, drums; Tim Landers, bass; Rich Ruttenberg, keyboards) that had to be a young singer’s vision of heaven, Swift performed a selection of songs heavily weighted with material from her forthcoming debut album. Most of the pieces were attractive, especially when (as in “Music for Your Neighborhood” and “Beyond the Stars”) they were constructed over a grooving rhythmic foundation.

Two standards, however, produced more conflicting results. Swift never seemed to find the right handle to “Love for Sale.” But an interpretation of “God Bless the Child,” with the singer accompanying herself at the piano, was movingly introspective, and one of the evening’s highlights.

She had less luck with a closing romp through Charlie Parker’s “Confirmation”--a difficult line, at best, and not one that can be sung, as Swift did, with a lag-behind rhythm.

Nor was Swift’s voice always her best ally. There were times when it had an almost schizophrenic quality--with rich, feelings-laden chest tones conflicting strangely with higher head tones that were airily empty. On a song like “Merry Christmas, Baby” one sometimes had the odd feeling of listening to two completely different performers.

Clearly, Swift still has some work to do. But the talent is obviously there, most notably so when she is singing to her own excellent piano accompaniment. If she can dump the Maria Muldaur quavers from her high notes and find a little better focus in her phrasing, Swift may turn out to be one of the better entries on that list of new jazz singers.