And finally, the disconcerting realization that Grace Kelly can play. The 16-year-old Brookline alto-saxophonist and singer, who’s been releasing CDs since she was 12, filled Scullers last Thursday anticipating the 2009 release of Mood Changes (Pazz). It wasn’t that Kelly’s solos tore the house down — but they were all poised, with unpredictable patterns, expressive intonation, and sure phrasing, from the up-tempo opener, “I’ll Remember April,” to Bill Withers’s “Ain’t No Sunshine” and a handful of respectable originals that included the convincing bebopper “Happy Theme Song.” And when she sang “It Might As Well Be Spring,” her Ella phrasing didn’t sound like a kid’s, though her age did add another level or irony to lines like “I’m as giddy as a baby in a swing.” Every tune had a rhythmic or melodic hook, and when she played an encore of “Over the Rainbow,” she didn’t ham it up — she laid back on the melody, with spare embellishment, and let the song and her sound do the work.
Related:
Museum pieces and other pieces, Autumn leaves, The long view, More 
- Museum pieces and other pieces
It's Jazz Week time again — that time when the Boston jazz community looks to expand its minority-appeal music to a larger public.
- Autumn leaves
One of the great harbingers of fall jazz for the past seven years has been the Beantown Jazz Festival.
- The long view
Bob Blumenthal’s first book is out, and the wonder is that we didn’t get it sooner.
- In action
In the era of YouTube, we’re apt to forget that not every note of music ever played has been captured on film or video.
- Birds of a feather
What continues to make the JVC Jazz Festival at Newport so vital these days isn’t just the variety but the depth of the variety.
- State of the art
You could find just about any kind of jazz you wanted on the three stages at the JVC Jazz Festival in Newport last weekend.
- Photos: Newport Jazz Festival
Herbie Hancock, Aretha Franklin, Christian Scott, and more
- What good can the blues do?
You can’t ask too much of the blues. Like the raw emotion they’ve become synonymous with, the blues are not cerebral. They are not progressive or revelatory.
- Various Artists | Tom Feminino/Tom Masculino
These two compilations of female and male singers addressing the Jobim songbook span five decades of idiosyncratic interpretations by a galaxy of mostly Brazilian stars.
- Back to the future
Since leaving Roomful of Blues, the vintage guitar hero Duke Robillard has moved forward by reaching back into the annals of American blues, swing, jazz, and R&B and by doing so, he’s told a pretty incredible story.
- Howlin’ Wolf | Rockin’ the Blues: Live In Germany, 1964
The fidelity of the recording is far from state-of-the-art, but its historical value - and sheer musicality - more than make up for any qualities that might peeve audiophiles.
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Music Features
, Entertainment, Music, Ted Curson, More
, Entertainment, Music, Ted Curson, Jimmy Herring, Becca Stevens, Jazz and Blues, Jordi Savall, Sam Cooke, Grace Kelly, Grace Kelly, Less
