Lili Maljic - The Nearness of You - In Loving Memory of Jim Rotondi
(Pacific Coast Jazz, 2025)
The Nearness of You does double duty: it is the much anticipated debut recording by Austrian-based, Serbian-born jazz vocalist Lili Maljic and an homage to the late trumpeter-composer Jim Rotondi, who arranged and performed on the recording shortly before his death.
On July 8, 2024, Rotondi died of a heart attack while visiting Le Crest, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. Well respected among his peers, the trumpeter released over fifteen albums as a leader for Sharp Nine, Criss Cross, Posi-Tone, and Smoke Sessions Records. Rotondi contributed to over eighty albums as a sideman. His recording career spanned from 1997’s Introducing Jim Rotondi (Criss Cross) until his death.
Born in Paraćin, Serbia, and classically trained, Lili Maljic is a vocalist, pianist, and arranger. She made a creative transition from classical to jazz under the tutelage of Serbian jazz icon Jelena Jovović, matriculating from the Music and Arts Private University of Vienna, where she studied with Dena DeRose.
Maljic’s debut rests on the sure foundation of the Great American Songbook, that finite source of material that has proven infinite in its reconsideration. Overuse is the Songbook's shortcoming. Every individual who believes he or she is a jazz singer releases a standards album. While many of these releases are good, with a few exceptional ones, the vast majority fall short. Against that history, Maljic deftly crafts a collection of well-worn songs, her raw talent revealing previously unrealized treasures among the familiar fare.
The singer accomplishes this with her crack rhythm section, made up of pianist Oliver Kent, bassist Miloš Čolović, and drummer Mario Gonzi. Trumpeter and flugelhornist Rotondi rounds out the quartet, providing colorful support and guidance in his arrangements and performances. Maljic’s relaxed vocal approach to the songs is the other successful ingredient for divining out the new from the old in these songs. The singer embraces these songs, but not so desperately as to wring the life out of them. With Rotondi, Maljic arranges the material to provide her with the greatest creative latitude, allowing the singer to find her own unique phrasing.
The Johnny Mandel - Paul Francis Webster composition “The Shadow of Your Smile” opens the recording. Rotondi composed a chorale fanfare fit for a Bach cantata as an introduction that leads into a solidly arranged bossa nova over a complex lead head presented by Kent on piano. Maljic’s vocals are confident, tinctured with a gentle Eastern European accent that infuses the piece with excitement and mystery. Her time and delivery are gracefully elastic, molding the melody to reflect her experience.
Maljic makes “Easy to Love” her own with her laconic phrasing, presenting the piece as a perfect show opener. The singer and bassist Čolović duetted over the first chorus ahead of the rest of the band kicking off for a mid-tempo romp. As free and easy as the Porter tune was, “Never Let Me Go” is a study in gentle tether and direction. The band swings with a calm elegance. The singer and band address Hoagy Carmichael’s “The Nearness of You” brightly and uptempo. Kent solos over several choruses, building and directing the drama into Maljic’s explosively original coda.
Maljic and her band's cooperation and interplay situate these songs just at the edge of recognition—a place where the results can pleasantly surprise even the most seasoned listener. The effect is arresting, making this repertoire sound ready for reevaluation. This performance of “You Go to My Head” is not your parents’ Frank Sinatra treatment. Rather, Maljic approaches the melody from a different direction, accenting beats previously hidden. “The Song Is You” shares its arranged structure with “Easy to Love,” with Maljic duetting with drummer Gonzi for the opening verse, taken at a breakneck pace. It is thrilling to hear.
The Nearness of You is an exceptional jazz exposition made that much more poignant by the Rotondi’s untimely death. This debut recording rates an end-of-the-year list consideration.