KRISTINA KOLLER, Walk on By

A thoroughly modern singer/songwriter and vocal interpreter, NYC born Kristina Koller built up a following throughout her 20s on the city’s jazz scene while engaging as a social entrepreneur in Peekskill, building community for jazz lovers, artists and young adults with events she sponsors throughout the region.

Though she launched her solo recording career with two albums featuring original songs, she’s proven to be an incredible liaison connecting today’s young music enthusiasts with legendary 20th Century composers – first with her Cole Porter tribute Get Out of Town (2022) and now, even more majestically and stylistically varied, with Walk on By, an homage to Burt Bacharach via adventurous spins on his classics as well as a few deserving relatively obscure gems.

Having recently entered her 30s, Koller didn’t grow up in the generation that experienced the genius of Bacharach’s hits firsthand – yet thanks to her mother’s influence, she can confidently say, in riffing on her snazzy, easy swinging funk/jazz romp through “Say a Little Prayer,” “This song is really burned in my memory because my mom played it so often.” The reality that Bacharach’s melodic genius is entrenched in Koller’s DNA comes clear from the jaunty, vocal harmony an deep pocket grooving jazz driven opener “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” through a sensual, slightly sped up, 5/4 spin through “Close To You” and a moody and mystical, R&B/neo-soul flavored “Walk on By.” Koller works equally exquisite magic with her haunting, intimate take on “Don’t Make Me Over” and a sweetly soulful, briskly swinging “That’s What Friends Are For.”

Vibing with her incredible longtime bandmates, most prominently Brooklyn based Ukranian pianist and keyboardist Fima Chupakhin, Koller finds fresh ways to not only re-imagine, but truly redefine for the modern age songs we’ve enjoyed for many generations now. But she goes above and beyond a typical tribute album by creating unique twists on and little heard gems originally recorded by Dionne Warwick and Steve Lawrence. Koller gives Warwick’s “Reach out For Me” a snappy, hipster edgy soul twist, while treating Lawrence’s “Loving Is a Way of Living” with gentle, almost gossamer kid gloves as she and Chupakhin weave an exquisite vocal piano duet that offers a philosophy for modern times as surely as it did nearly seven decades ago.