Alexis Cole | Sky Blossom
(Zoho Music)
On Sky Blossom, Alexis Cole leads her group through a dynamic and diverse selection of a dozen tunes by the Gershwins, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Anthony Newley, and others. Cole’s album is subtitled “Songs from My Tour of Duty”—she served her apprenticeship, as well as her country, in the U.S. Army Big Band and the West Point Jazz Knights. The singer, who heads the jazz vocal program at SUNY Purchase, kicks things off with Clifford Brown’s “Joy Spring,” in which her deft lyrical phrases and scat singing demonstrate her command of the bebop idiom. A poignant, ballad rendition of the Beatles’ “Across the Universe” and a version of Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind” that invests the tune with a previously unknown depth of soul and sass make a listener hear the familiar numbers with new ears.
