Singer Melissa Stylianou has been turning heads and capturing hearts since the turn of this century, from her native Toronto to her adopted home of New York City, from intimate club residencies to top festival stages. Stylianou’s newest album – No Regrets, her fifth disc and second for the New York-based Anzic Records – is about the joy of spontaneity. She recorded a set of jazz standards and other favorites in a live-to-two-track, noon-to-night studio session backed by a trio of New York all-stars: pianist Bruce Barth, double-bassist Linda Oh and drummer Matt Wilson, with guest spots by clarinetist Anat Cohen and alto saxophonist Billy Drewes.
She sings songs by likes of the Gershwins, Jerome Kern and Duke Ellington, along with a Billie Holiday tune, a vocal twist on Thelonious Monk, the indigo-hued chestnut “A Nightingale Can Sing the Blues” and, as a left-field inclusion, a folk setting of Yeats, “Down by the Salley Gardens.” DownBeat has called her a “sophisticated storyteller” and an “original.”
Melissa Stylianou – voice (NYC)
