'Without Night' by Christina Galisatus
There’s a kind of comfort-food jazz that might remind late-night listeners of Bob Parlocha, estimable saxophonist and host of the radio show “Jazz with Bob Parlocha.” He died in 2015, but his voice would’ve sounded just right introducing us to Christina Galisatus and her debut album, Without Night.
Stanford-educated in piano performance and composition, Galisatus has the air of someone very excited to apply her training to her own work, with a smart corollary understanding that she has volumes more to learn.
The way she sings reflects the understanding: her melodic vocal sense often slips beneath the surface of the music, or darts into and around the spaces among the instruments, as if she’s in those very moments deciding how to adjust her breathing, her singing, to the rhythms of the material.
She thereby imparts a dreamy, fantasy feeling to such songs as “Lily Pads,” and she often eschews words altogether: the second track, “A Fragile State,” finds her humming and cooing to enhance the languorous tune. She skids dangerously close to scatting now and again, but her delicacy is at odds with the stridency scat can have.
At the keys, Galisatus shows strength, with a rolling ease that is within sight of the people-pleasing acumen of Vince Guaraldi, Dave Brubeck, or, yes, early Norah Jones (to whom she will almost certainly be compared more than once).
With a solid band—particularly the fluid tenor saxophonist Michael Blasky, and the simpatico rhythm section of bassist Joshua Crumbly and drummer Zev Shearn-Nance—she eases into exploration with pensive tracks like “I Want to Know Her” and “Without Being Held.”
Without Night proves Christina Galisatus has talent, promise, and the curiosity to develop both further. It also is a jazz album for people who occasionally would rather hear Ballads than A Love Supreme.
|
|
