Gina Kronstadt - October Comes Too Soon (2020)

Clocking 43 years and counting of faithful service as an A-list violinist within Hollywood’s classical, studio, concert, film and television scenes, Gina Kronstadt is living the American working musician’s dream. Marinating in all genres and styles of music from high-brow to pop art, she is known and respected by major conductors and contractors for her flawless abilities to deliver whatever the music at hand demands. Still, for even the most successful players, there is often a longing to create music of one’s own that touches the hearts and souls of listeners – if not on the multi-platinum/award-winning scale of the clients one works for, at least for a dedicated audience that truly empathizes with where you are coming from as an artist in your own right. Not everyone is capable of navigating this dream transition. However, with the release of October Comes Too Soon, her third album, Gina Kronstadt is that rare entity who can absorb lessons learned in the presence of masters and apply them to her music in a manner that is not just technically impressive – after all, she is the singer, songwriter, arranger, producer and concertmaster for every song - but because the warmly intimate creations resonate with a signature sound all her own.

October Comes Too Soon is an 8-song collection of songs that largely find Gina musing on the nexus between what makes great friendships work between men and women, and the x-factor that looms over the possibilities for the deeper intimacy of love. The album opens with the inviting “A Simple Man” which extolls the fundamental gentleman qualities that set her heart ablaze. There’s the breezy Latin-tinged “Forever in a Row,” inspired by a friend’s phrase that poetically extends the virtues of true-blue-pal-dome into something beyond infinity. Both songs feature keyboard solos by longtime collaborator John Beasley (Miles Davis, Steely Dan, Dianne Reeves) whose dreamy touch has been a constant on Gina’s recordings.

The album’s initial emphasis track for radio is the watercolor wee hours vibe “The Threat of Love,” a song inspired by a man who has been both a spiritual guru and an enigmatic Adonis for our heroine…thus the song’s intriguing title: the “threat” being battling back the forbidden. At the opposite end of the thematic and musical spectrum is the heavy backbeat and horns funk jam “Love Game” which, via the presence of certain synthesizer textures, is a dead giveaway for its `80s origins - a dancefloor ready throwback of jazzy and flirty proportions that features her titan bottom team of bassist Benjamin Shepherd, drummer Joel Taylor and second keyboardist Nicholas Semrad (rockin’ some mean clavinet here).

A rich backdrop of horns and strings buoys the haunting romantic meditation “Maybe I Trusted,” culminating with a bewitching solo on clarinet by the ever masterful Bob Sheppard (Chick Corea, Rickie Lee Jones, Billy Childs), a man whose playing has mesmerized Gina’s imagination so deeply that she wrote a song about it on her last album entitled…“Magic.” Similarly transfixing is the muted trumpet work of Michael Stever (Clare Fischer Latin Jazz Big Band, Seal, Brian Culbertson) on the evocative title track “October Comes Too Soon.” It’s no wonder Gina’s music inspires such colorfully compassionate improvisations from her hand-picked players. The songs come from both lyrically personal and musically sophisticated places. “October Comes Too Soon’ was inspired by a guy I was seeing off and on for three years,” Gina shares softly. “He was the kind of man with whom I could be content just sitting and being quiet with no need to go out all the time - really comfortable. But every year around October, that serenity would fall apart.”

Another song that came from a more introspective space actually resulted in the album’s most groovin’ cut - a funk-jazz fusion lark entitled “IRL” which stands for “In Real Life.” “That song is about phony smiles and people talking trash,” Gina states, “not focusing on truth and what’s most important.”

Though not sequenced as such, “IRL would be the perfect prelude for the album’s profound finale “Who’ll Save You.” Over jazzy blues chord changes under the verses that explode into a faux-imperial military march on the chorus, Gina waxes with a pointed question backed by a Greek chorus. Add another magical solo from Bob Sheppard – this time on tenor sax – and the album clicks into crystal clarity.

Through it all, Gina Kronstadt weaves a spell all her own, melding the totality of her skills and intuitions by singing leads and backgrounds in a voice of equal measures purity and precision, writing exclusively what is in her heart, arranging rhythm, horns and strings with utmost taste and discretion, all the while standing tall and true to her visions of musical excellence and personal expression.