Zack Albetta: Press

Shay ‘s various vo- cal stylings are by turns sassy and poignant, crisp and tender— at times channeling Anita O’ Day without the scat, or Edith Piaf but with more reliable pitch. I drop these big names because she could be heading into those kinds of vocal territo- ries. This variety of vocal effects will get your attention. You’ll also notice her tight collaboration with the trio (ALL, for the guys’ initials). The innovative arrange- ments throughout, either by Shay or trio members, lead to crisp, distinctive effects, cabaret-like yet swinging. The result is (to cop a Jimmy Rowles album title) rare but well done.

Rowles’ instrumental standard “The Peacocks,” is here, with a new title and its rarely heard, atmospheric lyrics which Shay just nails. On another track, some of Shay’s flipped lyrics for a Gershwin standard provide an attention-getting turn-about: hear what happens when “but-not-for- me” becomes “but-not-for-you.” There’s also fresh treatment for other standards – by Rogers and Hammerstein, Berlin, Kern, Mercer, Monk. The rarely-heard George Handy and Jack Segal tune, “Where You At?” is as hip a song as you’ll hear any- where. “Hello, Young Lovers” and “Day In, Day Out” absolutely fly. “Cry Me a River” becomes a fast bossa. “’Round Midnight” is taken quicker than usual, and Albetta’s drums are outstanding throughout. Shay has her way on a ballad, too; I hung on every word of “The Night We Called It a Day” (and Lowrey’s spare comping and Leifer’s bass chorus are notable as well; in fact, the variously virtuosic talents of ALL members make this as much an instrumental as a vocal collection, both in the back-ups for Shay and in some long trio-only pas- sages).

Some songs in this set are rarely if ever heard in the jazz mainstream; songs from Tom Waits, Lennon and McCartney, and Brian Wilson and Tony Asher. But Estes and the trio make them fit seamlessly. And “Under the Milky Way” is Shay at her most dramatic; it’s her tour de force, the one that makes the room hush. Jeff Harshbarger provides vocal harmony in the refrain.

We think these well-combined instrumental and vocal talents make this a CD of special interest. Are these roses thrown because JAM people are among those thanked on the CD jacket for “time, talent, and endless support” ? Hey, no way! To get a rave review, there first has to be a quality product. Which this is.

Kansas City, MO Before turning to jazz, vocalist Shay Estes performed with a rock band, a Western-surf band, and a burlesque troupe. In recent years, Estes has collaborated with Brad Cox's People's Liberation Big Band and Mark Southerland's "Urban Noise Camp." 

Shay Estes and Trio ALL (an acronym for drummer Zach Albetta, pianist Mark Lowrey and bassist Ben Leifer) have a new CD called "Despite Your Destination." There are standards by Irving Berlin, and George and Ira Gershwin, as well as reworked versions of contemporary songs, like Tom Waits' "Little Drop of Poison." 

KCUR's Laura Spencer spoke with drummer and arranger Zach Albetta and vocalist Shay Estes about combining the old with the new.

Click the link to listen.

Laura Spencer - KCUR (Dec 9, 2009)

 

 

 

It’s tricky to predict which new musicians on the scene will continue making music for a long time and who will fade away.

But everything about singer Shay Estes’ first CD, “Despite Your Destination,” suggests that she’s in for the long haul. The recording, done with Trio ALL (drummer Zack Albetta, pianist Mark Lowrey and bassist Ben Leifer), mates old songs and new in contemporary fashion, but also demonstrates an old-fashioned commitment to quality.

“I wanted my first record to honor what we’ve done together,” Estes said. “I wanted to honor the people who have been coming to the shows. I wanted to honor the songs, and I didn’t want to give people half-hearted versions of them.”

From the sound of it, Estes and the band succeeded. They’ll have a CD release party Saturday at Jardine’s, where it will all become clear.

“I wanted to create an accurate representation of what we do onstage,” Estes said. “Of course, that isn’t easy, because Mark and Zack and I are such showboats. We feed off each other. Ben’s the only calm one.”

Estes has a flair for the stage. She’s been singing since she was a little girl in the 1980s trying to sound like Patsy Cline, but she also has experience in theater and dance. After graduating from Blue Valley High School, she headed for New York to pursue a career in musical theater.

“Then I came back with my tail between my legs,” she said. “I didn’t realize that wasn’t what I was supposed to be doing.”

Back home, she was somewhere between music and theater. She worked in a surf-and-lounge band, hosted karaoke and worked with a burlesque troupe. But about five years ago, Mark Southerland asked her to try a jazz gig. That’s how she met her musical soulmate, pianist Lowrey (they later discovered they were born the same day).

“The next thing I knew, Lowrey, Southerland and I were playing jazz gigs. Lowrey said, ‘You want to keep this going?’ ” And they did.

“Lowrey and I started working together in March 2004, I think. He’s been pretty much my best friend and musical cohort, my musical and business partner. Zack joined us three years ago, and within six months it was the same kind of partnership. I’m working with pretty much my two best friends.”

Jardine’s gave Estes her first headline spot as a jazz singer, and it’s been a steady relationship that’s given her lots of experience as a straight-ahead singer. She’s also worked outside the box in Southerland’s projects and with Brad Cox’s People’s Liberation Big Band of Greater Kansas City.

And all that experience is reflected on her CD.

The songs extend from the old (“Hello, Young Lovers,” “The Night We Called It a Day”) to the much newer (Tom Waits’ “Little Drop of Poison” and “Under the Milky Way” by the Church). Old songs get new twists: “But Not for Me” sports a changed set of lyrics that remove any trace of self-pity, and “’Round Midnight” gets pushed to a risky tempo.

Southerland makes a guest appearance, playing some inside-out tenor sax, and Jeff Harshbarger contributes some backing vocals (“Everybody knows he’s an incredible bass player, but very few are aware he’s a really amazing singer,” Estes said).

The whole thing was captured on old-fashioned analog tape.

“No place to hide,” Estes said. “No digital pitch correction, no digital monkeying with anything.… We wanted to make something that sounds like a ’60s Blue Note record.”

Her commitment shows in the details.

 

 

 

Shay Estes & Trio ALL
Despite Your Destination

Shay Estes & Trio ALL’s frothy new delight of a debut record, Despite Your Destination, applies the jazz-combo treatment to a variety of standards we all know by heart. It’s the right way to revisit these popular songs: familiarly soothing on one hand, but packing enough new twists to keep the listener interested and engaged from the first cut to the last.

The Kansas City group’s debut doesn’t sound tentative in any regard. In fact, it’s easy to imagine these four musicians have been together for ages, so relaxed and in a groove their playing can be.

Estes keeps her singing smooth and restrained throughout the album, wisely adhering to Michael Feinstein’s dictate that it’s practically impossible to under-sing this type of repertoire. Her voice often recalls the easy, conversational diction and tone popular among ’40s songstresses — direct, soulful, girly and pretty, but not plain.

The three men making up Trio ALL are hardly slouches, either. Pianist Mark Lowrey and bassist Ben Leifer share a remarkably symbiotic relationship, sometimes sounding like a single, four-handed player. Drummer Zack Albetta follows Estes’ lead of letting the performance serve the song, not call attention to itself — though he’s certainly up to a little solo here or filigreed fill there.

The model for Despite Your Destination becomes clear from the outset, with a brisk “Where You At” leading into “Little Drop of Poison,” which takes on a Latin accent. 

“Hello, Young Lovers” turns the “King and I” show tune ballad’s usual tempo and rhythm on its ear, skipping along briskly with a rollicking piano performance matching a subtly racing drum line.
 
“The Night We Called It a Day” is slow and torchy, while “’Round Midnight” gets a refreshing, spare and upbeat arrangement full of drumstick ticks and tocks.

Estes turns Gershwin’s “But Not for Me” into “But Not for You,” transforming a weepy lament into a gleeful kiss-off to a former lover. The lyric, “Although I can’t dismiss/The memory of his kiss/I guess he’s not for me” becomes “I hope you can’t dismiss/The memory of my kiss/Although you’re not for me.” It’s a very clever recast, giving an appropriately 2009 attitude update to a song written nearly 80 years ago.

The album contains plenty of other bull’s-eyes. “Across the Universe” is a gloriously free-form jumble, a rattling meditation on The Beatles’ oft-covered singsong catalog staple. Arthur Hamilton’s “Cry Me a River” gets the speed treatment, with Lowrey’s nifty, dissonant piano sneaking up from the low end and counterbalancing against Albetta’s sputtering snares.

The biggest impression comes from a song that’s achieved classic status only in recent years: Shay and Trio stretch out the melody of The Church’s hypnotic “Under the Milky Way” into a country-tinged ballad that stands fittingly alongside every other tune on the album.

One of Estes’ nicest touches is her resistance to showy displays of vibrato. Many (most?) performers would jump on the long, drawn-out finale to Jimmy Rowles’ “A Timeless Place (The Peacocks)” as an invitation to ostentation, but Estes lets it end simply and surely, in keeping with her pace on the rest of the track. Good decision, at least on record — though it would likely be fun to hear her tear it up live.

Shay Estes and Trio ALL have created a new take on a clutch of songs audiences might think are played about as far out as they can go. Despite Your Destination’s effortless jazz updates couldn’t possibly be a more enjoyable listen.

— derek donovan { special to ink }

Find it
You can find Despite Your Destination at Streetside Records, Prospero’s Books, The Kansas City Store, in some local Barnes & Noble stores and on iTunes.

 

 

 

The serious pop and casual-jazz listener may wonder where Shay Estes & Trio ALL — an acronym of the last names of drummer Zack Albetta, pianist Mark Lowrey and bassist Ben Leifer — are going on Despite Your Destination. It's the arrangements; they take risks with well-known songs. But the risks are rewarding. Besides the usual standards ("Cry Me a River," "'Round Midnight"), the album includes songs such as Tom Waits' "Little Drop of Poison," which gets the Latin treatment, and the Beatles' "Across the Universe," which has a like-it or don't-like-it-so-much sound, thanks to some chord substitutions that throw the listener off. But between Estes' vocal delivery and Lowrey's piano solo, it works on its own merits. The Church's "Under the Milky Way" gets Estes' torch-song treatment and shows the song's adaptability. Guests sax man Mark Southerland and bassist Jeff Harshbarger need something to do, so Southerland gets a chancy arrangement of "How Deep Is the Ocean" to showcase his solos, and Harshbarger adds vocals to "Milky Way." Not everyone may like where Estes and ALL are going, but one thing's for sure: They arrive in style.

 

 

 

Exerpt from the article: 

LIST-OMANIA: THE YEAR IN MUSIC, IN WORDS AND PHOTOS

CHUCK HADDIX

“The Fish Fry,”

KCUR (89.3 FM)

Derek Trucks, “Already Free”

Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens, “What Have You Done My Brother”

Allen Touissant, “Bright Mississippi”

Hot Club of Cowtown, “ Wishful Thinking”

Various artists, “Daptone Gold”

David Maxwell and Louisiana Red, “You Got to Move”

Lee Fields, “My World”

Dave Alvin, “Dave Alvin & the Guilty Women” Johnny Bassett, “The Gentleman Is Back”

Shay Estes and Trio ALL, “Despite Your Destination”

 

 

 

Kansas City jazz ensemble Shay Estes & Trio ALL — drummer Zack Albetta, bassist Ben Leifer, and pianist Mark Lowrey — releases its debut album, Despite Your Destination, this weekend. 

“We’re really excited about the variety of material we’re presenting,” said Lowrey, 29. “We’re trying to cross over into the realm of modern jazz by writing arrangements of songs that aren’t staples in jazz repertoire.” 

Instead of the old standards, you’ll hear jazzy reimaginings of The Beatles’ “Across the Universe,” The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” and Tom Waits’ “Little Drop of Poison.” 

The album title comes from the lyrics of “Under the Milky Way,” originally by new wave band The Church. That track was the first arrangement Estes and Lowrey worked on together five years ago.

“A lot of this material has been out there for five years and has evolved and grown into something else,” said Estes, 29. “The songs we chose are ones that felt very lived-in. Comfortable.”

Listen for a musical cameo by saxophonist Mark Southerland and guest vocals from Jeff Harshbarger — both titans of the local jazz scene. 

You can find Despite Your Destination at Streetside Records in Westport, The Kansas City Store on the Plaza, Prospero’s Books on 39th Street, a few area Barnes and Noble locations, Amazon.com, CDBaby.com and eventually on iTunes.