| Julie Wolf: Elegance |
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Her solo cd "Walk the Worn Out Floor" is to beautiful for words, as is the woman. As her hands slowly, very slowly start to play the first track, "My Foolish Heart", you can hear Julie's lips part right before she begins to sing. It's one of those magical moments in music when you and the artist become one, the feeling that you are listening from a breath away. The moment is absolute heaven. "If I Loved You" a song first penned by the duo of Rodgers and Hammerstein becomes Julie's. I'm taken aback time and time again by the maturity in her phrasing, not only on this song, but on so many of the songs in this collection. A gorgeous melancholy and quiet introspection live and breathe on this track. She posseses the ability of being able to deliberately hang on a phrase, a note, and then, allow it fall a bit behind the song's natural rhythm. Listening to "Love is Like a Cigarette" I'm always taken aback by the softness, the gentle air that resonates in the woman's voice. "Trust in Me" a song by Denny Goodhew, is sung to perfection. The interplay between the words, her piano and her voice, astounds me. She touches me with the 'feeling' of all three as they merge into one, imparting an opening of the soul. She does an interpretation of Keith Jarrett's "My Song". This song is just to beautiful, it kills me, leaves me in a gorgeous restful place-everytime. The lyrics written by Rhiannon, a friend of Julie's, overlap and seemingly decode the sax melody played on the original version. "A Mountain Atop a Mountain" is breathtaking. Close your eyes and you're floating totally free as the airiest of cellos plays the melody, it's quietly taken over by Hans Teuber's flute, flying just abit higher and then the sweetness of Julie's voice, holds you as the same melody is finished as it should be, with her angelic tones in duet with the flute. Listening to her arrangement of "Baby Plays Around", you hear an ominous series of basslines being played behind the lyrics, by John Silverman. It darkens the music and for myself, matches the many moods being sung by Ms. Wolf. Julie weaves many emotions as she sings the lyrics. She moves from a sad timbre, a voice of anger, of worry, for what is to become of both of them. She touches on a complicated matter of factness. A place where a person finds acceptance of the truth in someone they love beyond measure, beyond longing, beyond reason yet deep remorse in finally having let go. A proud love but one that may make you ashamed to have fallen so deeply for them. "Don't Go to Strangers" not only showcases Julie Wolf's voice but also her extremely tasteful soloing. I really don't know what jazz pianists she's studied, but I hear bits of everyone from Jarrett, a bit of Corea, a touch of Zawinul, colors of Lyle Mays' solo work, a sprinkle of Donald Fagen. <At least to my ears...> This song moves from some infectious, bright and upbeat chords to start, and some very tastefully executed soloing. It all slowly finds it's way back, reacquainting you with Julie's magnificent voice to open the song's first verse. As she delivers her lines she also slows and darkens the mood, ever so gently. The tones become very soft and dreamlike, and her vocal walks inside and around the chords. Glorious. The solo starts very slowly, with a thoughtfulness, a meditative brilliance that grows into a very steady moving river of notes delivered with such purposeful deliberateness. As her solo builds, the somber mood that had been painted, sharpens and like a flower, it starts to blossom. It opens, not only a very quiet <audible> breath but also a walking bassline that starts to move the solo into a new color, a new brilliance, a new rhythm. The chord clusters chime and ring out but quickly remember their earlier musical embrace, and begin to close around themselves and break into single, soulful notes once again. Julie has once again shifted the mood and rhytmn , her fingers start to lead us back to some very heartfelt closing verses.Ah, what an artist. She moves quite easily from the melodies of Annie Lennox to Rodgers & Hammerstein to a self penned song called "The Wall". This song, "The Wall", is a promising look into what the woman could offer us if we could only get another Julie Wolf solo cd. Julie left me wanting to know more about the character she's singing about...and that's exactly the intent. We all put up walls in our lives, for protection of our hearts, for the sake of diverting someone who's getting alittle to close, or just a wall to put up the memories. On "Daisy Petals on My Head", a cd by her sister Kate, you can hear one song co-written by Julie, yet I would love to hear more of Julie's solo music. There really isn't to much on Julie Wolf out in 'webland', I've looked. It's a shame that an artist of her ability, her promise, her grace is for our purposes, living a musical life of such anonymity. The talent of this woman is immense. I'm so proud to know of her talent. I'm so very happy that I've come to know her music. Her touch on the piano is as delicate as her voice, yet her ability for interpretation is so far beyond what has become celebrated in today's 'so called music'. To have Julie Wolf acknowledged by today's standards of artistry would be a giant step downward to mediocrity. I'm very proud to have met Ms. Wolf in person. She left me feeling a wonderment, a melancholy that only a person of that kind of elegance could bring. I'm also very proud to create, in this small space, a webplace for one of my favorite artists: Ms. Julie Wolf.
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