REBECCA RAFLA, Fundamentally Unfinished

It takes a certain confidence for a debut jazz vocalist to resist the easy route of filling a first album with familiar standards. Rebecca Rafla does precisely the opposite on Fundamentally Unfinished, surrounding four thoughtfully reimagined classics with six originals that reveal a songwriter with many meaningful and deeply intimate things to express. Even more impressive, her romantic compositions hold their own alongside material by Cole Porter and other masters of the tradition. And then there’s the delightful plot twist: Rafla is also a practicing pediatric dentist, proving that she can bring smiles to her patients by day and to jazz listeners by night.

From the opening title track, Rafla announces herself with bright, breezy authority. Her quicksilver phrasing locks into the percussive piano-trio pulse, alternating flowing lines with playful stops and starts before a boisterous sax solo and fiery piano improvisation raise the temperature. “A Day and Then Forever” reveals a more lyrical side, its seductive bossa nova sway providing room for longer, sensual passages and an increasingly impassioned declaration of love. “I Love You I Do (I Do)” is another buoyant original, propelled by bustling drums, punchy horns and brisk vocal lines, while

“Without You” imaginatively blends jazz with an old-school R&B ballad feel. Rafla shifts her vocal pace with remarkable ease, making each change sound instinctive rather than calculated.

Her gentler emotional palette emerges on “Sunday,” a haunting, meditative ballad where soft brushes, dark piano chords and lush strings gradually intensify the feeling. It’s among the album’s most affecting expressions of love and longing. Then comes her gorgeous, nearly gossamer a cappella entrance to Porter’s “I Love You,” where crystalline high and low tones establish an intimate mood before the arrangement blossoms into a gently swinging, jazz-elegant setting. “Sweet Nothings,” another original, sounds almost like a forgotten standard rediscovered in an old songbook—playful, nostalgic and witty, with Rafla writing in the lineage of Gershwin and Porter while retaining a distinctly contemporary sensibility.

Her reading of “The Very Thought of You” is equally graceful, beginning with just voice and piano before subtle orchestration, brushed drums and gorgeous strings envelop her like a caress. On Roberto Menescal’s bossa nova classic “Little Boat,” she delivers one of the album’s biggest surprises, shifting between snappy twists and elongated notes, adding an amiable scat duet and even singing the final verse in Portuguese. She closes with a energized, bluesy-swinging take on “What a Difference a Day Makes,” bringing a soaring heartfelt edge and imaginative note choices to the Dinah Washington-associated classic.

Fundamentally Unfinished ultimately introduces a major new presence: a vocalist with nimble phrasing, emotional nuance, compositional confidence and an instinct for orchestral and ensemble writing that continually reveal fresh colors. Rafla may be fundamentally unfinished, as her title suggests, but this debut feels like a remarkably complete beginning.