Over
the past decade, PAUL MARINARO has been one of the most
in-demand and critically acclaimed jazz vocalists in his adopted
hometown of Chicago. He performs regularly at world famous venues
like Joe and Wayne Segal’s Jazz Showcase, The Green Mill, Andy’s
Jazz Club and Winter’s Jazz Club, where he is currently in
residence. Marinaro has performed from coast to coast, including
critically acclaimed appearances at the iconic Birdland Jazz Club
in NYC. He has earned the praise of everyone from the Chicago
Tribune’s Howard Reich, who called his voice “one of the most
beautiful instruments in the business today,” and critic Scott
Yanow, who wrote in LA Jazz Scene, “Paul has taken his place
among the top five male jazz singers active today.” Likewise,
Grammy-winning writer Neil Tesser says, “He swings hard…a giant
baritone that manages to be both virile and gorgeous.” Nearly a
decade after his acclaimed debut album, Without A Song, a
passionate tribute to his father, Marinaro is releasing his
years-in-the-making latest album, the provocatively titled NOT
QUITE YET.
The
Buffalo native is an intimate, honest, and deeply compelling
storyteller. This multi-faceted collection is an invitation into
the singer’s often playfully swinging and graceful exploration of
timeless themes - life, love, the search for meaning and the
longing for connection – as seen through the lens of the collective
anxiety we all have felt these past few years.
The
title NOT QUITE YET comes from “No Plan,” the haunting, hypnotic (and
relatively obscure) David Bowie tune from his posthumously released
EP, also called No Plan. The singer especially relates to
the lyric, “All the things that are my life/My moods, my beliefs,
my desires, Me alone/Nothing to regret/This is no place, but here I
am/This is not quite yet.” It’s not simply a thoughtful response to
the pandemic, a period during which Marinaro engaged fans with home
“concerts” on Facebook and YouTube, but also a reflection on the
various stops and starts that the singer experienced both
personally and professionally. A traumatic health scare in 2017,
brought on by septic shock related to his years of struggling with
diverticulitis, was one such major setback. After being sidelined
due to multiple surgeries in 2018, he was back in action in 2019,
playing multiple gigs throughout the United States and Canada,
various festivals, and highly acclaimed performances at Jazz at
Lincoln Center, Jazzhus Montmartre in Copenhagen, and Konserthuset
Stockholm. Then came the pandemic, ushering in a personal and
professional limbo like never before.
Helping
Marinaro bring his grand narrative to life on NOT QUITE YET
are three longtime members of his band, guitarist MIKE ALLEMANA
(10 years), pianist TOM VAITSAS (15 years) and bassist JOHN
TATE. The core ensemble is completed with drummer GEORGE
FLUDAS, who has played with greats like Lou Donaldson, Kenny
Burrell, Betty Carter, Diana Krall and Roy Hargrove. Three tracks
feature the horn section of MARQUES CARROLL (trumpet), RAPHAEL
CRAWFORD (trombone), CHRIS MADSEN (tenor sax) and GREG
WARD (alto sax). In addition, clarinetist RAJIV HALIM
plays on “That’s All” and flutist JIM GAILLORETO (the
album’s co-producer) appears on “Searching.” Seven tracks feature
the all-female KAIA STRING QUARTET – VICTORIA MOREIRA,
violin; NAOMI CULP, viola; AMANDA GRIMM, viola; and HOPE
DECELLE, cello. Two respected vocalists, ALYSSA ALLGOOD
and SARAH MARIE YOUNG, provide backup on “5:15 The Angels
Have Gone” and “No Plan.”
The
album opens with a briskly swinging, 6/8 arrangement of the Mel
Tormé standard “Born to be Blue,” a song Marinaro feels, despite
its quick energy, “represents the darker aspects of the project’s
theme.” The singer shares his charming, sensual, and longing side on Antonio Carlos
Jobim’s dreamy bossa-nova gem “Someone to Light Up My Life” (about
the quest for new love after a breakup) and continues the thread of
hope on “Make Me Rainbows,” from the 1967 Dick Van Dyke film
“Fitzwilly,” composed by John Williams with lyrics by Alan and the
late Marilyn Bergman and performed here in an infectious slow
groove. By inhabiting Bowie’s haunting, torchy and classically
tinged “5:15 The Angels Have Gone,” Marinaro artfully represents
the feeling of rootlessness, isolation, and dissonance that we’ve
all endured during challenging sociopolitical times. For the
singer, the subtle ballad “Remind Me,” one of the lesser-known
tunes in the Jerome Kern/Dorothy Fields canon, reflects someone who
longs to take a chance but is hesitant.
His
bluesy, swinging, big band swagger on “No One Ever Tells You,”
co-written by Hub Atwood (the father of his friend, singer Eden
Atwood) for Frank Sinatra, taps into a bit of the anger one feels
when love goes awry. Keeping the brassy energy flowing, Marinaro
explores the feeling of being lured into the illusion of romance on
“Invitation.” The starry-eyed optimism remains on Ivan Lins’
whimsical fantasy “The Island,” and reaches a fever pitch about the
many sweet possibilities of love on what is perhaps the
collection’s most exuberant number “On A Wonderful Day Like Today.”
Along those lines, the singer considers “That’s All,” presented
here with sweeping orchestration, an expression of an honest, romantic promise. NOT QUITE YET wraps with the samba-tinged
“Searching,” an adaptation of “E Luxo So” featuring original lyrics
by Marinaro; the obscure, magnificently poetic Stephen Sondheim
piece “I Remember”; and the fitting closer, Bowie’s aforementioned
“No Plan.”
“Different
versions of this album have been in the works for quite a few
years, with starts and stops for a plethora of reasons, not the
least of which being the global pandemic,” Marinaro says. “When my
guitarist and arranger Mike Allemana and I sat down with these
songs, some of which had become integral parts of my live
repertoire, our initial feeling was, ‘How do you sing about life
and love when the world is upside down?’
“As
it was always intended to be, this album is an honest and personal
collection of songs which address themes and reflect moods that are
characteristic of me at this stage. Though these eternal themes are
common, our interpretations were colored and shaped by the
circumstances in which we most recently found ourselves. Recalling
the past - wondering what’s next - stuck in limbo. This is NOT
QUITE YET.”
# # #
NOT QUITE YET is set for release October 28, 2022 and will
be available everywhere.
Online:
Paulmarinaro.com
Facebook.com/paulmarinaromusic
Youtube.com/PaulMarinaro
@paulmarinaro
(Twitter/IG)
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