Stephanie Haynes Delivers Good News

Good news for Southland fans of jazz singing: Stephanie Haynes is back. Or, at least, she was back on Saturday night at Spazio for her first performing engagement in more than six months. Now a resident of Las Vegas, Haynes has been surprisingly inactive recently for an artist with her admirable skills.

Unfortunately, despite a track record that consistently revealed all the attributes necessary for first-rate jazz vocalizing, her career never quite took off the way it should have. (The interruption caused by the hazards of a potentially life-threatening illness didn’t help either.)

Despite her own self-described musical “rustiness,” Haynes sounded as good as ever in her late set at the Sherman Oaks venue. Always a precise and accurate singer with flawless pitch and a receptive ear for colorful harmonies, she brought all those qualities to her performance, moving from romping blues to emotionally incisive ballads.

“If You Could See Me Now,” a Tadd Dameron tune clearly intended as an instrumental in its original incarnation, was delivered by Haynes in a fashion that respected its harmonically roving melody while remaining in firm contact with Carl Sigman’s poignant lyrics.

“The Night Has a Thousand Eyes” opened up Haynes’ innate rhythmic energies, and a spirited set of choruses on Duke Ellington’s “C Jam Blues” provided an appropriately upbeat climax for a musically impeccable presentation.

Good singing, of course, needs supportive accompaniment, and Haynes received the best from pianist Karen Hammack, bassist Jeff Littleton and drummer Paul Kreibich.

Hammack, much favored by vocalists--with good reason--responded to every nuance of Haynes’ unfolding lines. And the rhythm team of Littleton and Kreibich propelled without intrusiveness, their energetic locomotion providing the engine for Haynes’ imaginative musical explorations.

Fortunately, Haynes will be back again soon, on an as-yet-undetermined date in August, to explore the music of the Gershwins. That’s even more good news.