Judy Wexler - No Wonder
(Jewel City Jazz/A Train, 2025)
The West Coast is fertile ground for jazz vocals. It is a community of equals, each bringing their personal style and story to the art of jazz singing. There is a first among equals, and she is Judy Wexler. No Wonder is Wexler’s seventh release, and she continues with her tried-and-true method of having pianist Jeff Colella supplying keyboards and arrangements, as well as co-producing the recording with Wexler. For this album, the singer added noted LA producer Barbara Brighton as a production consultant. Brighton produced for Wexler early in her career, and brings her own brand of magic to the new recording.
Wexler is calling No Wonder her “Standards” recording, devoting all of her time to the Great American Song Book. However, she and her fellow producer’s repertoire are off the beaten path of the “My Funny Valentine” standards collection. Wexler began by asking her pianist and arranger, Jeff Colella, to prepare arrangements similar to the two-horn treatments he made of “Delilah” (with new lyrics and renamed “Dreams & Shadows,” the title track to her 2008 album). What Wexler wanted out of this was an entire album of such arrangements. No Wonder is the result.
Wexler’s song choice was based on these arrangements and a desire to address the “hipper” songs in the canon. To address this lofty goal, Wexler, Colella, and Brighton brought in a group of musicians already well known to the trio and anyone else recording in the area. Besides the pianist/arranger are multi-instrumentalist Danny Janklow (Stevie Wonder, Wayne Shorter, Burt Bacharach), multi-instrumentalist Bob Sheppard (Joni Mitchell, Chick Corea, Freddie Hubbard), trumpeter Jay Jennings (Snarky Puppy), guitarist Larry Koonse (John Patitucci, Luciana Souza, Mel Torme), bassist Gabe Davis (Arturo Sandoval, Buddy Guy), and drummer Steve Hass (Christian McBride, The Manhattan Transfer, John Scofield).
The title song, composed by Luciana Souza, opens the disc. It is one of the album’s two outliers (the other being Michel Legrand’s “The Summer Knows," which makes a dandy song for a movie. The song captures the innate warmth of Wexler’s voice, showing off one of her greatest vocal attributes. The singer takes her colleague and friend, Kitty Margolis' arrangement of Cedar Walton’s hard bop instrumental, “Firm Roots,” writing newly original lyrics, re-titling the piece, “Firm Roots (Are What You Need to Win).” On Henry Mancini’s “Slow Hot Wind” (first an instrumental titled “Lujon” until Norman Gimbel added his steamy lyrics). this solid arrangement highlights the West Coast’s best kept secret, Bob Sheppard’s slippery soprano sax solo.
These are just a few small tastes for the sumptuous meal that completes No Wonder. Judy Wexler has locked in a music making method that promises to continue producing splendid music in the future.
Discography
Easy On The Heart (Rhombus Records, 2005)
Dreams & Shadows (Jazzed Media, 2008)
Under A Painted Sky (Jazzed Media, 2011)
What I See (Jazzed Media) 2013
Crowded Heart (Jewel City Jazz, 2019)
Back The Garden (Jewel City Jazz, 2021)