Anna Kolchina - Reach for Tomorrow
(Burton Avenue Music, 2025)
Russian-American jazz vocalist Anna Kochina is not a new name. Before Reach for Tomorrow, she had released Street of Dreams (2015), Dark Eyes (2016), and Wild is the Wind (2017). All favorably received, Kolchina was well on her way to the top floor of NYC singers. After recording Wild Is the Wind and appearing on the cover of Jazz Perspective magazine in December 2017, Kolchina took a deep dive into the city's live jazz environment. She gigged at historic Greenwich Village staples like Smalls Jazz Club, among others, establishing relationships with a broad network of American musicians.
This wood shedding out in the open allowed the singer to fully develop her local stage presence, craft, and repertoire, preparing her for her first commercial release in almost a decade. Kolchina spent several years meticulously crafting a long-term passion project. She stepped into the role of producer and began a series of recording sessions that stretched across multiple years between 2021 and 2024.
Kolchina’s vision for Reach for Tomorrow was a departure from the larger band formats of her previous recordings. The singer spent her time collaborating individually with six premiere guitarists (Peter Bernstein, Russell Malone, Romero Lubambo, Paul Bollenback, Yotam Silberstein, and Ilya Lushtak) resulting in two recordings each from them (mostly). Each performance is a conversation between Kolchina's voice and a single guitar. The singer selected this minimalist setting to emphasize the emotional vulnerability and "simplistic artistry" of the arrangements.
Ilya Lushtak opens the recording with Kolchina on a dusky “Dancing in the Dark,” his only appearance on the album. Halfway through the singer’s first duet with Peter Bernstein, “Invitation,” the accomplishment becomes clear—the duet format encourages the two protagonists to meet each other where they, respectively, are. The vocalist and individual guitarists embrace the intimate environs of the duet differently. Kolchina meets Peter Bernstein downtown in a dark, cool club, entertaining the regulars with an introspective “All or Nothing at All,” while meeting Russell Malone in a Harlem alley, lamenting the flatted fifth with “Vacation from the Blues.”
Kolchina enjoys a fruitful rapport with Brazilian guitarist Romero Lubambo, performing "What Now My Love?" and "So Many Stars." The artistic synergy realized in this duet, with the shimmering guitar work coupled with Kolchina’s sensitive and humid voice. This music lounges, shirtless, in the shade with its toes in the sand. It is likewise in the selections performed with Paul Bollenback, whose sharp sense of time and humor elevate otherwise already elevated readings of “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams” and “Whistling Away the Dark.”
It’s been a long time since Wild Is the Wind, but this wait was worth it.
