Naama - 'Tis Autumn
La Reserve Records, 2025
New York City vocalist Naama has averaged about an album a year since 2020. Her recordings are uniformly fine and chronologically follow the singer’s evolution within her craft. These earlier include: Dearly Beloved (Cellar Music Group, 2020), If I Knew Then (Self Produced, 2022), Where Flamingos Fly (La Reserve Records, 2023), Wild Is Love (La Reserve Records, 2024) and Dream With Me (La Reserve Records, 2025). Her last full-length recording drew on the theme of dreams, where dream or its idea in the title of each of the included pieces. The singer continues the production thematic trend with ‘Tis Autumn,” a five-song homage to the fall.
Every Naama recording reveals new ways that the singer settles into her art. Naama’s phrasing and delivery have grown from the coy coquettishness of her early recordings to the established veteran, still sensual and confident (and miles from the resignation that comes with “Something Cool” and “Lush Life”), of her later ones. Using Autumn as her muse, Naama spins a tale of love and expectation that runs through the Nat Cole vehicle “‘Tis Autumn” through the Kurt Weill / Maxwell Anderson “September Song.”
The fulcrum of the collection is a merry treatment of Samara Joy’s “Sweet Pumpkin,” reprising that singer’s entry into the seasonal canon from 2022. Naama and her trio: pianist Adam Birnbaum, bassist Dave Baron, and drummer Kush Abadey establish a perfect fall swing that anticipates well the approaching holiday season.