A musical treasure

From the Summer 2003 issue.

Eden Atwood is an absolute treasure, one of our very best jazz singers.

She's not a star, however, this despite critics raving over her and proclaiming her the next big thing ever since she first hit the scene in the late '80s.

So what gives?

She's got the whole package – great pipes, spot-on timing, drop-dead looks, great taste in choosing the songs she sings.

Her most recent disc found us by way of the record of the month club, where we picked this CD as one of our 12 free discs because we remembered her knocking us dead on Concord Records' jazz Christmas compilation a few years back.

She still knocks us dead; "Waves" – subtitled "The Bossa Nova Session" – has been a staple on the stereo in the Turbula offices the past month or so, ever since it arrived. Impeccable, absolutely perfect readings of Antonio Carlos Jobim's "He's a Carioca," "Girl From Ipanema," "Caminos Cruzados" and "Meditation" combine with languid versions of Ellington's "Don't You Know I Care," Irving Berlin's "How Deep is the Ocean" and even the Beatles' "Fool on the Hill."

Her performance is equal parts time machine to the '60s and the most modern of sounds; she's both stylish and soulful, hip and heartfelt.

Go buy her CDs. Make her the star she ought to be.

Mostly, make it worth her while to keep singing.

Review by Jim Trageser. Jim is a writer and editor living in Escondido, Calif., and was a contributor to the "Grove Press Guide to Blues on CD" (1993) and "The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Blues" (2005).