Lucky So & So

Collection Contents

#		Title	Length
1		!All of You	3:59	Play
2		!Garota De Ipanema	4:28	Play
3		!I'm Just a Lucky So & So	4:25	Play
4		!The Man I Love	4:54	Play
5		!Reality	5:23	Play
6		!Teach Me Tonight	4:46	Play
7		!A Foggy Day	5:21	Play
8		!No More Blues/Chega De Saudade	3:28	Play
9		!Waltz For Debby	4:23	Play
10		!Embraceable You	4:22	Play
11		!The Best Thing in Your Life	5:43	Play
12		!Time after Time	3:35	Play

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Description

"This is an experienced singer... and it's the Diana Krall-like combination of innocence and sexy womanliness somewhere in the timbre of her voice that lets you know it."
Shane Nicols - www.allaboutjazz.com, Oct '01

REVIEWS:

SWING JOURNAL, JAPAN, APRIL 2004

CD REVIEW "Lucky So & So"(p. 160) written by Keiichi Baba

Rating: Outstanding

Bonnie Jensen hails from New Zealand. As you can see, she is beautiful, and so is her music. Her vocal nuance is very much "jazz". She has that kind of flaxen blonde voice you want to listen to forever. And her singing is very clear. The improvisation on the
second track, "Garota de Ipanema" , is very fine, with backing not only of piano trio but multiple saxes as well. Listening to "A Foggy Day", which she also arranged, you can really appreciate how she can get inside a song. She has a high standard and sings like no one else, but with an indefinable air of nostalgia. This is music for adults."


DAVID NATHAN, AMG, USA (www.allaboutmusic.com) AUGUST 2001

...Maintaining the high standards set by the La Brava label with its previous releases, Jensen delivers a scintillating, expressive 55 minutes of music. Possessing a voice with excellent range, she distributes emotions tailored to the message she wants each song to convey to the listener, whether the tune be an original or standard - the mark of a good jazz singer. Thus, "Waltz for Debby" is tender and a bit wistful. "Teach Me Tonight" imparts a sense of urgency as she staggers space between words and lines to make this oft-recorded song come across somewhat differently than one usually hears it. Her own "Reality" is more contemporary musica and comes wrapped in a Brazialian beat. Jensen also recognises the importance of imaginative arrangements to make sure that the proper combination of instrumentation is used to help her meet her performing objectives ... she displays a vocal instrumental power and clarity combined with a sense of intimacy that makes the session work. Recommended.

MICHAEL FOSTER, CANBERRA TIMES, AUSTRALIA, 26 OCTOBER, 2001

... This velvet voice sings of a wonderful time and style of jazz that will have people of such persuasion drifting down the lane signposed "Memory" recalling mostly sweet and gentle times, wrapped (and rapt) in lovely phrasing, clear diction and beautiful instrumental sounds...

BEN MCEACHEN, THE ADVERTISER NEWSPAPER, ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA, 3 SEPTEMBER 2001

...Bonnie Jensen is an accomplished global chanteuse, whose debut album is evocative of the intimacy expected of jazz singers performing live. Jensen is blessed with a sensual, malleable voice, which will caress your ears above a din of late-night cocktails or candle-lit dinners ... as she's more velvet than voluminous, Jensen has selected her material well ... the first track, Cole Porter's "All of You" is a fitting introduction to Jensen's smooth lounge tones and respectful backing.

The acoustic-backed "No More Blues" and the lonely piano "The Man I Love", gives the feeling that Jensen is a distinct national talent worthy of more note.


KEVIN JONES, THE AUSTRALIAN NEWSPAPER, FEBRUARY 9, 2002

It's easy to see why this CD is riding so high in the Independent Australian Jazz Charts. Not only is Bonnie Jensen an excellent singer and arranger - she has a hand in the charts for all 12 tracks - but there is an easy intimacy between her and the other musicians, expecially pianist Michael Bartolomei, a consummate and perceptive accompanist and imaginative soloist...

BIOGRAPHY

Bonnie J Jensen has established herself as a respected and versatile acoustic-orientated jazz musican - a singer, pianist, and songwriter who has developed her talents through prestigious long-term residencies, into a career of professional engagements worldwide.

Her first notable public recognition in the jazz world came in 2001, shortly after the release of her debut CD Lucky So & So which received vast critical acclaim and quickly rose to NO. 3 in the Australian Independent Jazz Release Charts. This immaculately produced recording of jazz standards and two originals places her warm and stylish vocals to the fore, and also features the talents of other leading Australian musicians: Michael Bartolomei, David Stratton, Nick McBride, Steve Brien, Graham Jesse and Casey Greene.

The American music critic David Nathan, who has written scores of reviews and liner notes for luminaries including Shirley Horn and Roberta Flack, wrote the following in his column on www.allaboutmusic.com in July 2001:

"Maintaining the high standards set by the La Brava label with its previous releases, Jensen delivers a scintillating, expressive 55 minutes of music. Possessing a voice with excellent range, she distributes emotions tailored to the message she wants each song to convey to the listener, whether the tune be an original or standard - the mark of a good jazz singer."

November 2003, whilst home in Sydney, Bonnie recorded and co-produced her second CD Blue Joy, a soulful mix of popular tunes, and originals, inspired by her travels.

This album contains more original material, displays her development as a writer and arranger, and was devised with a coherent theme - love's inherent dichotomy of ecstasy and anguish.

Blue Joy quickly climbed in the Australian Independent Jazz Charts' Top 10 and was also immediately repackaged and released by a Japanese distributor. A feature article about Bonnie appeared in the April '04 issue of Japan's Swing Journal - the magazine for jazz devotees, and Blue Joy rose to No. 8 in their (vocal) charts for the month of June 2004, placing Bonnie along-side signed, well-marketed artists such as Norah Jones, Diana Krall, Michael Buble and Keiko Lee. These charts are based on sales of CDs at 9 major record stores in major cities throughout Japan.

Shane Nicols of The Australian Financial Review wrote the following in February 2004:

"Jensen's second album is a confident, bold and coherent statement of a musician (singer, player, composer and arranger) hitting stride. Jensen is that rarest of things - a full blooded, grown up sexy woman unafraid to let her passions and eroticism inform her music in a sophisticated way, beyond the usual raunchy, bluesy stuff. She's a nightclub singer who belongs in gowns, not jeans, and harkens back to a school and a style that is both timeless and increasingly rare.

"Performing with her on a selection of her own tunes and such wonders as 'This Masquerade', 'Every Breath You Take', and 'Just The Two of Us' are a crack line-up of jazz musicians that frame this music in just the lustrous and vivid colours it needs. It's a very even album, with no missteps, beginning with Bonnie's own 'Tokyo Skies', a remarkably frank and modern exposition of desire and neediness, plumbing a well of loneliness in 'Sharing The Night With the Blues', 'Good Morning Heartache' and 'Baby Come Home' - canny choices all of them - and topped with a radical reworking of Stevie Wonder's 'Creepin', replete with Jensen's own rap fantasia at the close. Her reharmonisation of Sting's classic is beautiful and logical, finding new layers in a tune that always hinted they were there."

The official launch of Blue Joy was held at Sydney's famous jazz venue - The Basement, where Bonnie and her sextet - a handful of Australia's top Jazz musicians (Jonathan Zwartz, Fabian Hevia, Michael Bartolomei, Craig Walters, Jon Pease and Don Rader) played to a full house on a cold, rainy night.

While many artists talk about listening to their parent's records when they were young, Bonnie's introduction to jazz was somewhat unconventional. She was in her early 20 when she first encountered the genre that she is now so passionate about. Her initial discovery was the music of the Brazilian master, Antonio Carlos Jobim, ironically whilst she was living in Germany. The purity, sophistication and complexity of the Brazilian music resonated with her, and its influence is audible in her writing and arranging. "I love finding a damn good song that's really well loved, blurring the genres, and giving it a new reincarnation", says Jensen.

"The beauty of jazz is that, while there are definite forms, there are no rules. The fact that there's a new generation of artists working within the parameters of jazz who also work outside the square, like the young Englishman Jamie Cullum or America's Norah Jones, and are becoming incredibly successful, tells you something really exciting is happening, and in Australia, it's an artist like Bonnie J Jensen that's making it happen."

Michael Smith, The Drum Media, Australia, July 2004

Bonnie avoids falling back on the straight jazz singer's usual safe bets (scat singing, sole reference to standard songs, choosing instead to work over Latin, relaxed funk or minimalist slow-burn settings for original tunes and well-loved pop-songs, to which she gives her trademark acoustic jazz treatment.

"Her original songs are usually drawn from her own experiences. 'If I know I've got something burning in me, I just make myself sit down and manifest it.'

Her song Tokyo Skies on her latest album Blue Joy was written while she was performing in Japan in 2003. She walked the streets, relaxing after rehearsals, and watched people coming home from work. 'Sometimes I am inspired by the idea of writing in a particular meter, like writing a blues tune in three/four time', she says.

Bonnie also wrote a swing tune [The Flame] for Blue Joy. While her music echoes the sounds and musical stylings of another era, she says she wouldn't dare model herself on anyone else."

Troy Lennon, The Daily Telegraph, Australia, July 2004

See Bonnie's website for more information and reviews www.bonniejjensen.com

To read about her 2004 release "Blue Joy" go to www.cdbaby.com/jensen2.