NATALIE JACOB, Sooner or Later

There are many ways to develop a career as a jazz singer. The conventional route is to choose great classic material, work with a stellar arranger, record albums and showcase the material via live gigs locally and on tour. Then there’s the Natalie Jacob way, which begins with the multi-faceted vocal interpreter fronting or being featured in many popular L.A. based Latin and Brazilian bands (Blue Nova, Along for the Ride, Corcovado) and the Paul McDonald Big Band while developing her a repertoire with her own band at numerous SoCal clubs.

When fans began asking her for a CD of the material they were enjoying, she turned to her Grammy winning friend Scotty Barnhart, a trumpeter and director of the Count Basie Orchestra. Putting together an ensemble of L.A. greats, Jacob and Barnhart present Sooner or Later, an infectiously eclectic set full of some of the sly, sultry and colorful swingers that populate her live set and have set her audiences alight for years – including “Exactly Like You,” “I Could Write a Book,” the Diana Krall inspired “East of the Sun (West of the Moon)” and the especially brisk and snazzy “What a Little Moonlight Can Do.”

Though Jacob keeps the band hopping throughout with mostly up-tempo arrangements, she brings a graceful poignancy and emotional heft to the ballad “Smile” via a beautiful, piano based arrangement featuring Tamir Hendelman. She also draws on her many years of Brazilian singing to complement the Songbook tunes with spry, engaging strolls through three Jobim classics, “Wave,” “Corcovado” and the exotic, harder swinging closer “No More Blues (Chega De Saudade”).

Complementing the mostly familiar material, Jacob brings a sensual, sultry gusto to a charming, coquettish tune that sounds like a Songbook standard but is actually an obscurity from much later – “Sooner or Later,” a Stephen Sondheim penned ballad Madonna recorded in 1990 on I’m Breathless: Music From And Inspired By the Film Dick Tracy. Now that Jacob’s firmly established her bona fides as a jazz recording artist, it would be great to her share her uniquely phrased twists on obscure but still worthy songs like this in the future.