It has been eight years since Synia Carroll released her debut Here’s To You… (Self Produced, 2016). That album revealed Carroll as a fully formed artist making grown-up music. Bracing, honest, and sensual, Carroll expands her repertoire while tightening her thematic reach using water and its unique characteristics for her allegory.
Carroll’s title, Water Is My Song derives from the Sudanese poet, Mona Hagmagid’s poem “Holy Water.” One might expect the standards “Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea” (featuring tenor saxophonist Houston Person) and “How Deep Is The Ocean” performed in a sprite duet with bassist Kenny Davis to be present in this collection. They are presented here in fresh and provocative interpretations. “Willow Weep For Me” is presented as a jass-blues antheme. Carroll may sing her best here.
Carroll is not satisfied with simply a jazz standards status quo. The singer upends the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood,” stretching the original phrasing to recall Betty Carter’s singing method. The spiritual “Wade In The Water” and Scottish folk song “The Water Is Wide” are deftly transformed into jazz ruminations, pianist John Di Martino gently guiding the flow of the performances.
The often abused “Afro Blue” is shown maximum love by Carroll, rendered with a humid and sensual Afro-Cubano expression complete with background vocals and chants by Beatriz Hernandez and David Oquendo, who also provides flute support. If Water Is My Song” has a spiritual center it is this song. Carroll approaches it with all of the carnal desire voiced by the lyrics except she accentuates the joyful aspects of the lyrics. This is evidence of Carroll as an exceptional interpreter of songs. Eight more years will be much too long to await her next offering.