Here's a musical mix of the old and new, starting with something new that has borrowed all the material from an old album by a legend: Kandace Springs presents all the songs from a classic Billie Holiday album. Two more new items are filled with gems from the old days. There's Kieran Brown's Loving You, which, in addition to a couple of her original compositions, has the Sondheim title song and classics such as "Alfie." The latter also shows up on Marilyn Kleinberg's collection and a phrase from its lyrics provides the release's title: Let Your Heart Lead the Way. Old demos for a never-finished project are new to our ears as they're fleshed out with other musicians to create Sing You a Brand New Song, a posthumous unveiling of Coleman Mellett's originals.

KANDACE SPRINGS
LADY IN SATIN
SRP Records
CD | Digital | Vinyl

The final track on the 2020 release, The Women Who Raised Me, wherein the engaging singer/pianist/songwriter Kandace Springs saluted female artists who've influenced her, was "Strange Fruit," a nod to the legendary Billie Holiday. Now she's taken on a project that lets her musically follow in the formidable footsteps of that icon, featuring all the songs from one famous Holiday album, on which the star sang with a large, lush orchestra and a few voices instead of the usual jazz ensemble. Miss Springs is likewise accompanied by an even larger sumptuous group of musicians (60 pieces): The Orquestra Clássica de Espinho, recorded in Portugal. Her album and its model share the same name, Lady in Satin, and the same overall approach to the mostly sorrowful selections. Rather than coming off as "lesser"–a pale or slavish "imitation" or just redundant–it's a very viable valentine that very much honors the model, but has its own captivating richness and resonance, restrained more on this project to suit the Billie blueprints (and blue moods).

Listening to each Holiday track, back to back with the Springs stylings, as I went through the dozen numbers, increased my appreciation for elements that are similar and those that are different. Although each work stands on its own merits, the side-by-side comparisons make for an interesting experience. Kandace Springs has more vocal range, purity of sound, and more strength than Billie Holiday had in 1958, when she recorded her Lady in Satin. It was the year before she died, when her voice showed the wear and tear caused by a hard life with hard drugs, but the fragility factor worked for the mostly mournful material, highlighting a compellingly vulnerable persona. The idiosyncratic Holiday timbre, tics and trademarks–such as sighing through and sliding around notes, taking little liberties–were still in evidence. The current recording adopts a few of the changes. For example, in the repeat of a section of "I'll Be Around" that has the line asking the loved one to "drop a line to say you're feeling fine," there's the insertion of the word "mighty" before "fine." And in the lyric of "Violets for Your Furs," to tell how those flowers were given, both women substituted the word "brought" for "bought."

Without labored mimicry, Kandace Springs captures the Billie sensibility; she channels the essence of the legend's manner and projected personality, but her prettier tone tempers the melancholy. This makes the 2025 Lady in Satin more satiny smooth, a deep dive into this sea of sadness without drowning in it. For example, she comes off as someone you'd bet on to be the one who'll move on from loss sooner than her role model in "I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes)."

Just as the singers' paths in phrasing and shaping notes sometimes are similar and sometimes notably diverge, the six arrangers for the glorious orchestra in Portugal offer fresh touches and give the singer room to embellish, but also pay dutiful homage to the 1958 treatments in some passages, such as pauses and fills, the same moments for the background voices, etc. The opening track may be "You've Changed," but what's changed from the ancestor is as rewarding as what recalls what was woven into the fabric of the landmark Lady in Satin.

KIERAN BROWN
LOVING YOU
Cellar Music
CD | Digital

Let's welcome another ear-pleasing female vocalist to the community! Hats off to Kieran Brown and her debut release, Loving You. It contains 10 selections, six of which she arranged, including two she wrote: the blithe "I'll Love You Just the Same" (also a good showcase for the album's pianist, Tyler Henderson, and his way of dancing across the keys) and the meatier "Little Bits of Magic." Her youthful sound is bright and unfettered.

"Alfie," contemplating what life is "all about," is fully inhabited and "in the moment" with each probing question and theory. Indeed, warmth and sincerity appear to be her strong suits, especially on two tracks where that sincerity is enhanced by the presence of strings. There's a string quartet for the portrait of "Emily" (the vocal version of the theme from the 1964 film The Americanization of Emily), and the quartet's cellist, Iona Batchelder, exquisitely solos on the final track, playing a sublime 60 seconds of "Maria" from West Side Story before the singer comes in with the same score's "Somewhere" with an aching purity, at first a capella, before piano and cello join her. The Leonard Bernstein/ Stephen Sondheim classic is breathtakingly beautiful. More Sondheim is graced with the number from Passion that is Loving You's title song. While in the original stage context, it's one character's solo serious confession of compulsion and poignant unrequited love, here it works surprisingly well as a duet. Shared with grandly soulful Nathan Farrell impactfully pouring his heart out, it is reinvented as a couple's proclamation of mutual devotion.

"You're Gonna Hear from Me" and "Hallelujah, I Love Him So" are kind of tepid compared to the unbridled jubilant way we usually hear them; Kieran Brown's M.O. of modesty here denies them their full potential of exuberant explosiveness. Still, the attractive vocal timbre remains a plus.

If you love solid, adept vocalizing without self-indulgent, over-the-top diva-esque strutting and showboating, you are likely to be loving Loving You.

MARILYN KLEINBERG
LET YOUR HEART LEAD THE WAY
Waking Up Music
CD | Digital

On the 11-track collection Let Your Heart Lead the Way, deep-voiced Marilyn Kleinberg and her musicians can get deep into the emotional ambiance of the chosen repertoire. Gravitas is in evidence with the pensive theories about priorities for a meaningful life in "Alfie," the naked insecurity of the pleading "Never Let Me Go," and the haunting prediction "You Won't Forget Me." Appreciation for finding romance is expressed with jaunty glee in "I Just Found Out About Love" as well as two thoughtful songs whose titles have the same first three words: "I Didn't Know About Love" and "I Didn't Know What Time It Was." The latter, by Rodgers & Hart from the 1939 Broadway musical Too Many Girls, swings happily to end the album on a bright note.

Two numbers with lyrics by E.Y. Harburg, both from the 1930s, are in the collection. They are an earnest "Then I'll Be Tired of You" (music by Arthur Schwartz) and a wistful take on "If I Only Had a Brain" that includes the narrative introductory verse by Harburg and composer Harold Arlen not heard in the classic movie The Wizard of Oz.

Much of the mood-setting comes courtesy of the prominent presence of the sound of the chromatic harmonica played by Will Galison. His skillful work creates a dreamy feel and accents the sadder emotional content. Also on board is the splendid pianist/arranger John DiMartino, a musician whose past work with singers has had a cerebral bent, making him a good fit for this singer's more serious-minded approach. Joining them, and gratifyingly in sync, are bassist Noriko Ueda and drummer Victor Lewis.

Marilyn Kleinberg's musical background includes early work singing with rock and a capella groups before turning to jazz and standards. She's been singing in clubs for quite a few years (a gig a few years ago was billed as a celebration of her 70th birthday), but has only recorded one other (much older) album, Romance Dance. In an interview, she expressed a desire to follow up Let Your Heart Lead the Way with a recording consisting of material written by Stevie Wonder; her effective reading here of his 1973 song, "Visions," indicates that such an undertaking could be another winner.

COLEMAN MELLETT
SING YOU A BRAND NEW SONG
Bejame Records
CD | Digital

Instantly ingratiating, the voice and songwriting of the late Coleman Mellett presented on Sing You a Brand New Song are a belated, worthy discovery showcasing a man previously known as a guitarist. The selections radiate romance and disarming optimism in their lovely, low-key way. The gentle, unpretentious vocal sound and songs are soothing and smile-inducing. Note that almost all these lyrics that look on the bright side of life with cheer shining through have references to the sun, literally or as a metaphor. Guileless and modest, the cloud-chasing cheer never comes off as corny or pat. The lilting melodies match the sweetness of the vocals and the words being sung. (There's also one instrumental, his guitar solo: an appealing cover of James Taylor's early hit "Fire and Rain.")

Listening is like a session with a supportive life coach who has a convincing perspective. Encouragement to "hang on" and "stay in the race" is the message in"Rainy Days."

Philosophies about the dawn of a new day bringing new hope or the comfort of a partner's presence fill, respectively, "Everymornin'" and "What You Are to Me." But there's comic relief in the sly portrait of a character called "Digibob" who is tied to technology, content to "bask in his monitor glow" rather than enjoying the sun or traveling ("But all of those places that flash by his screen/ He knows what they look like, but not what they mean"). Other tracks are unabashedly heartfelt love songs.

Mr. Mellett's years-long planned vocal album of his own songs never got past the gestating stage of demos he made, with just himself on vocals, guitar and keyboards. Meanwhile, he worked as a guitarist accompanying others, for live gigs and their recordings. He died in a plane crash 16 years ago, at the age of just 34, on his way to a gig with the band of Chuck Mangione, with whom he'd regularly toured. The demos have been culled and edited, posthumously expanded via additional contributions by musicians including, among others: Mangione himself playing flugelhorn on a couple of tracks; organist Larry Goldings on two; Barry Miles on piano, percussion and harmonica on all the vocal tracks filling out the arrangements and producing; electric bassist Will Lee on half of the dozen selections, with drummer Steve Gadd on most of those. James Taylor doesn't play or sing on "Fire and Rain," but instead contributes his own guitar work and a bit of background vocal on "Come on Home," the number that has Sing You a Brand New Song's album's title in the lyric.

Coleman Mellett was married to the fine singer Jeanie Bryson (and played guitar on one of her own albums). She has added background vocals to two tracks and the program has a remix of their loving vocal duet, "You Got Me Too," which first appeared on a release called The Right Move where he was billed as one of The Salt Brothers. Also in his discography is a guitar solo album titled Natural High.

The labor of love that rescued what could have continued to be hidden treasures results in something charmingly life-affirming to celebrate. A documentary film about this performer, with the same title as the audio recording, was shown in film festivals where it was awarded prizes.