Capathia Jenkins - Phenomenal Woman: The Maya Angelou Songs and Songs Without Words (2018)

Some projects are so unique, so ingenious, that they nearly defy description. The new album "Phenomenal Woman: The Maya Angelou Songs and Songs Without Words" (DiTone Records) is a song cycle that pays tribute to the poetic genius of the late American poet Maya Angelou. The new recording was crafted by award-winning musician, arranger, and composer Louis Rosen and veteran vocalist Capathia Jenkins with a jazz sextet. Angelou’s poetry forms the lyrics for eleven tracks of the cycle, with four additional original instrumentals composed by Rosen that serve as a prelude and three interludes. The project is co-produced by Scott Lehrer.

The music of "Phenomenal Woman" is entirely original and yet hauntingly familiar. Jazz at its core, the project reflects elements of jazz, folk, Delta blues, gospel hymns, funk grooves, cabaret and Tin Pan Alley pop—a range of American-bred musical forms that are the brilliantly appropriate accompaniment to the musical prose of a truly American poet. In Louis’ compositions, created specifically for Capathia, listeners may experience echoes of Kurt Weill, Burt Bacharach, Claude Bolling, and Jean Pierre Rampal, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Stevie Wonder, Duke Ellington, and others. Capathia’s fluid, emotion-drenched soprano expertly rides every melodic roll with laser-like precision, imparting Angelou’s words with humor, sizzle and sting. Just as with the saying “the whole is greater than the sum its parts,” the combination of words, music, and vocals weave a compelling magic spell.

The recording is an expansion of Rosen and Jenkins’ March 2005 world premiere of the project at New York jazz venue Joe’s Pub, where the song cycle was initially presented in its original version for voice and piano. The album features new arrangements by Rosen, with support from long-standing Jenkins/Rosen collaborators, including Kimberly Grigsby (Broadway conductor) on piano and organ; CJ Camerieri (yMusic Ensemble) on trumpet and french horn; Hideaki Aomori (yMusic Ensemble) on alto and tenor saxophones, flute, clarinet and bass clarinet; Andrew Sterman (Philip Glass Ensemble) on alto sax, clarinet and flute; Susan Rotholz (Orchestra of St. Lukes) on flute; Erik Charlston (ABT Orchestra) on vibraphone, and Broadway veterans Dave Phillips on acoustic and electric bass and Gary Seligson on drums.

The new release is the fifth album collaboration between Jenkins and Rosen, and completes the recording of Louis’ BLACK LOOM TRILOGY, three song cycles composed for Capathia utilizing the poems of three major African-American writers, including "Dream Suite: Songs in Jazz and Blues" (Di-tone Records) on Poems by Langston Hughes and "One Ounce Of Truth: The Nikki Giovanni Songs" (Di-tone). Their other albums together are "South Side Stories" (Music & Lyrics by Rosen - Di-tone Records) and "The Ache of Possibility" (Music & Lyric by Rosen with lyrics for four songs by Nikki Giovanni.) All of their albums together are available on CD Baby.

Capathia Jenkins has been featured on Broadway in Newsies; Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me; Caroline, or Change; The Look of Love; The Civil War; and Off-Broadway in Nora Ephron’s Love, Loss, and What I Wore; (mis) Understanding Mammy: The Hattie McDaniel Story (Drama Desk nomination); and Godspell. Her television and film credits include The Wiz Live on NBC; 30 Rock; The Practice; Law & Order; The Sopranos; Third Watch and Top Five. In recent years she has traveled the globe appearing as a soloist with many symphony orchestras in the U.S. and abroad including Cleveland Orchestra, New York Pops, Cincinnati Pops, Philly Pops, National Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic and Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and many more. www.capathiajenkins.com.

Louis Rosen received a 2005 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in Music Composition. His solo recordings for Di-tone Records include "Dust To Dust Blues" (Music and Lyrics, 2017); "Time Was" (Music and Lyric Adaptations, 2013); and "Act One: Piano Music From The Theater" (2017). Among his many other compositions in various genres are two musical theater pieces, "Book of The Night" (Music and Co-Lyrics, Goodman Theater, 1991) and "A Child’s Garden" (Music and Co-Libretto, Off-Broadway, 2000); scores for 30 theatrical productions on and off Broadway and at major regional theaters around the country; and 12 concert suites drawn from these scores, the most recent being "Act One Suite for Solo Piano" from the Tony-nominated 2014 Lincoln Center Theater production, "Act One", written and directed by James Lapine. He is also the author of the highly acclaimed memoir/oral narrative "The South Side: The Racial Transformation of an American Neighborhood" (Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 1998). Additional awards include an NEA New American Works Grant; the Gilman and Gonzalez-Falla Musical Theater Award; twenty-five ASCAP Awards; a Puffin Foundation Grant; an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Galileo Prize and Commission; and Chicago’s John W. Schmid Award, Best New Work for BOOK OF THE NIGHT, among others.