Stevie Holland - Talk to Your Tomatoes
(150 Music, 2026)
Stevie Holland is a multifaceted American jazz and cabaret singer, playwright, and actress known for her sophisticated vocal style and lyrical intelligence. With a background in musical theater and a career spanning over two decades, she has earned critical acclaim for her “effortless elegance” and ability to bridge the worlds of jazz standards, pop, and original songwriting. Her latest project,Talk to Your Tomatoes (2025), continues her long-standing collaboration with award-winning composer and husband Gary William Friedman, blending classic storytelling with her signature warmth and wit.
Since Holland’s last recording, Life Goes On (150 Music, 2015), the singer has focused heavily on musical theater and developing multimedia adaptations of her stage work, including Love, Linda: The Life of Mrs. Cole Porter, her one-woman homage to Linda Lee Thomas. The singer spent several years developing the musical, Platinum Dreams, alongside her husband, Gary William Friedman. Many tracks on Talk to Your Tomatoes, including the title song and “You Pull Through,” were originally written for a film project that was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, she “reconstructed” these songs for the new album. Holland has most recently been developing a new “theatrically conceived” piece focused on the work of Kurt Weill.
Holland’s art has always been full of fun and whimsy. The singer’s gentle sense of humor seasons her music with quiet and calm. The phrase, “Why so serious?” comes to mind. Holland infuses her music with carefree intelligence that stealthily draws the listener into something greater than a mere “hearing” experience: the enjoyment of her art. The singer’s voice reflects her playful sense of humor also. As Michael Bublé singing comes from the tradition that gave us Bing Crosby and Fred Astare, so Holland’s singing comes from the stage-informed singing of Doris Day and Dinah Shore. Holland’s voice is as bright and clear as Spring. Add the string sections used, and this becomes more pronounced.
Those vocal attributes are well on display in the original title track, where Holland summons lyric inspiration from the great Dave Frishberg’s bag of tricks. It is a clever song that walks the edge of Guy Clark’s “Homegrown Tomatoes” (from Better Days (sSarner Bros., 1983) except more anthropomorphized. The Day-Shore influence is clearest on Lay and Lerner’s “On A Clear Day” and “Pure Imagination.” Her clarity is evidence of he stage work—few vocal gymnastics with well-behaved scat singing. the recording’s heart lies within “‘Round Midnight” in a quiet duet with guitarist Ben Monder. The singer and Monder give the standard a twentyfirst century pressure washing. Both artists are spectal in the piece, performed as if from a memory of a reccuring dream.
Stevie Holland provides a very enjoyable listening experience—at once a throwback and jump forward. Hopefully she will not wait as long to continue this music making.
Discography
Do You Ever Dream? (150 Music, 2000)
Almost Like Being in Love (150 Music, 2003)
Restless Willow (150 Music, 2004
More Than Words Can Say (150 Music, 2006)
Before Love Has Gone (150 Music, 2008)
Love, Linda: The Life of Mrs. Cole Porter (150 Music, 2010/2018)
Life Goes On (150 Music, 2015)