Have you heard of Natalie Cressman? If you’re interested in jazz you should definitely check her out. There are not many videos on Youtube, and those that are there are from rehearsals, live shows, and promotions, so I would urge you to go and bu her album “Turn the Sea.” I guess her other releases are as well as this one, but I still haven’t had the chance to listen to them more carefully. What I heard on Turn the Sea is more than “another new name on the scene.” There is some serious songwriting on that release. Yes, songwriting, not just composing. The album is made up of songs, with lyrics (and some good ones too,) actual singing and fantastic grooves. Cressman is a master-rank musician on several levels: she is a hell of a trombonist, excellent singer, and a unique, extraordinary composer. There are songs on the album that will seriously get inside your head and stay there for weeks. If I had to make a comparison, I’d say that Cressman has an unconventional songwriting style, similar to Joni Mitchell’s, although her overall sound, grooves, and arrangements more likely resemble Esperanza Spalding’s musical expression. But as I said, that is only if I had to make that comparison. Otherwise, I would argue that Natalie Cressman is one of the more original voices to come up on the jazz scene recently, and having her age at mind, she is yet to show her magnificent talents.
Born in San Francisco, Cressman moved to New York where she studied at the Manhattan School of Music on scholarship, where she studied with Luis Bonilla, Garry Dial, Laurie Frink, and Wycliffe Gordon. She was asked to join Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio's solo project and has been touring with TAB ever since. Cressman has released two albums in her own right, both self-produced, “Unfolding” and “Turn the Sea,” which feature primarily her own compositions. Her original music is a blend of singer/songwriter, jazz, funk, and world music. The origins of her eclectic style are best described at the end of her official bio: “Her far-flung musical passions continue to bear new fruit, as her identity as a horn player and a singer/songwriter evolve in different directions. Playing funk trombone in arenas and cavernous theaters has required developing an aggressive new vocabulary of shouts, growls, smears and yelps, a la the JB Horns’ Fred Wesley. Her vocal work in increasingly intimate and rhythmically insinuating settings has revealed an artist who can thrive in any setting, from raucous, reverberant halls to packed and pulsing lofts and nightclubs. In an epoch marked by infinite musical possibilities, Natalie Cressman is a singular force who draws from an improbable breadth of sonic realms. “
