LILI MALJIC

THE NEARNESS OF YOU – IN LOVING MEMORY OF JIM ROTONDI

Independent release

Lili Maljic, vocals/arranger; Oliver Kent, piano; Miloš Čolović, bass; Mario Gonzi, drums; Jim Rotondi, trumpet/arranger.

Jim Rotondi was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, arranger, educator and conductor. He was born in Butte, Montana in 1962 and died sixty-one years later at the young age of sixty-one.  He played and worked in New York City for twenty years before moving to Austria.  He taught at the University for Music and Dramatic Arts in Graz, Austria.  Perhaps this is where he met the young vocalist, Lili Maljic.

Rotondi left a legacy of playing on over eighty albums as a sideman and performing with some of the legends of jazz, including Ray Charles, Lionel Hampton, the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra, George Coleman, Curtis Fuller, Lou Donaldson, Eric Alexander and many, many more. As a band leader, he recorded eighteen albums, many for Criss Cross Records, but also on Smoke Sessions, G2 Records, Sharp Nine, Cellar Music Group and Posi-Tone.

Rotondi has arranged the opening tune of this album, the familiar “Shadow of Your Smile.”  His trumpet opens the tune, with an overlay of horn harmonics that enrich the arrangement, giving a big band feel. I enjoyed the bass line that the piano played. It stitched through the song like a needle and thread, holding the arrangement in place.  Maljic has a style that sometimes slides to the note instead of hitting it dead on.  This is quite notable at the top of this tune.

On the standard, “Easy to Love” the Austrian-based jazz vocalist opens with just Miloš Čolović on upright bass and her voice.  They sing the song down once, then the band joins in.  “Never Let Me Go” is presented as a ballad, with Maljic drawing the phrasing out dramatically.

Rotondi has arranged “The Touch of Your Lips” as a mid-tempo swing that transforms this classic standard into something new and fresh. Rotondi’s solo raises the bar, and transforms this piece followed by a great piano solo by Oliver Kent.

Lili Maljic has arranged “The nearness of You” moving from 4/4 swing into waltz time on the bridge.  She also arranged “This Can’t Be Love” where she sings a duet with just the bassist. and she scat sings, trading ‘eights’ with Čolović.  Then the timing gets a little misplaced. However, she makes up for it by appropriately coming back in at the top.

The vocalist challenges herself, singing a’ cappella with only the drummer, Mario Gonzi, accompanying her. The tempo is racing and it’s a challenging arrangement.  The vocalist must remember, in speedy times like this, that fifty percent of her vocal prowess is to sell the song and interpret the lyrics.  Telling the story gets lost in the execution at such a high rate of speed.

This is a young, talented singer on the rise, who is celebrating one of her mentors, the late Jim Rotondi.  She has great potential and brings us two hands-full of songs we know and love that feature her talents as a vocalist and musical arranger.

Reviewed by Dee Dee McNeil

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