The Jazz Guitar of

Andy Brown

June 27, 2017 | By Howard Reich

Top-notch jazz in an unusual spot-a shopping mall

Unforgettable jazz often turns up in unlikely places.

On Monday evening, for instance, listeners flocked to a shopping mall in Evanston, where one of the storefronts belongs to a dance studio — with an impromptu jazz room tucked inside.

So while students at Dance Center Evanston practiced their plies and tap routines in various rooms, a large crowd packed Studio5 to hear master guitarists Howard Alden and Andy Brown leading a quartet. Not a decibel from the dancers in the adjacent studios bled into the listening space, however, the two art forms co-existing quite peaceably.

Studio5 is the creation of artistic directors Bea and Steve Rashid (a married couple), who until last June put on jazz sets at the Whiskey Lounge in Evanston. As appealing as that tiny space was (it seated 70 maximum), Studio5 tops it in several ways. For though the spacious room accommodates dance classes by day, the Rashids convert it into a comfortable listening space on select nights, complete with retractable theater seating, a few cafe tables and surprisingly warm sound (though it proved a bit boomy on this occasion).

Accommodating up to 150 listeners, Studio5 resembles the large room at the Constellation arts center, on North Western Avenue, which also doubles as a dance space. In both instances, the owners have come up with an ingenious way of underwriting a music venue: Keep the place busy — and generating revenue — from morning to night.

Just as he did at the Whiskey Lounge, musician Steve Rashid begins each installment of the "Live at Studio5" jazz series with a brief, spoken introduction. Then he yields to the evening's performers, returning after the first set to conduct a short, follow-up interview. The two-hour show gets edited for future broadcast on "Chicago Jazz Live," which airs from 7 to 8 p.m. Tuesdays on WDCB-FM 90.9.

There's nothing quite like it in Chicago jazz: an evening that feels like a cross between a bona fide concert and an informal jazz seminar.

Monday night's offering drew a large contingent of musicians — always a good sign — including trumpeter Bobby Lewis, singer Paul Marinaro, saxophonist Greg Fishman, vocalist Petra van Nuis (guitarist Brown's wife) and several more.

"We could form a band in the audience," Lewis quipped before the show.

The pros undoubtedly knew of the deep musical relationship between the evening's featured guitarists, Alden long having been a mentor to Chicagoan Brown. The two have performed frequently together across the city and around the country, documenting their partnership on the aptly named 2013 album "Heavy Artillery" (Delmark Records).

Much of the evening's repertoire came from that recording, but not the rousing opener, "9:20 Special," from the Count Basie book. It didn't take long to realize anew why Alden and Brown have played together so well, for so long: They share a love of traditional jazz-swing vocabularies but approach them distinctly.

In essence, Alden's sharp-edged tone, surprising twists of phrase and unexpected chord changes were counterbalanced by Brown's even-keel dynamics, sleek lines and smooth-and-steady approach to rhythm.

The music fully took flight in Clark Terry's "Chuckles," from the "Heavy Artillery" album, Alden and Brown elegantly finessing the tune's syncopated rhythms. The copious invention of Brown's statements inspired a characteristically edgy response from Alden, whose solo bristled with bent notes, punctuating silences, pointed tone and plenty of wit and whimsy. When the two traded phrases, they clearly were speaking different dialects of the same language.

Through all of this, bassist Joe Policastro (a longtime Brown collaborator who's heard on the album) and drummer Phil Gratteau (sitting in for Bob Rummage) provided ample rhythmic propulsion without overstating the case.

Some of the most introspective sounds of the evening emerged when Alden and Brown played alone together. In "Crazy He Calls Me," Alden's tinged-in-blue solos hardly could have been subtler, his musical quotation from "They Say It's Wonderful" delicately woven into the texture and flow of the music-making.

Listeners may have expected an easy-breezy approach to bossa nova in Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Brigas Nunca Mais" ("No More Fights"), but Alden declined to oblige. Instead, his rhythmically aggressive, fast-flying passages countered conventional performance practice in this music, while Brown offered a gentler response.

The band closed the set with Red Norvo and Tal Farlow's "I Brung You Finjans for Your Zarf" (yes, that's the title), from the "Heavy Artillery" recording, the band relentlessly gathering momentum as it built to an exuberant swing finale.

That climactic finish led to the Rashid interview, which shed insight on what had transpired, nowhere more than in Alden's explanation of why he plays a seven-string guitar. By offering excerpts of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli's "Tears" with and without the additional string — and the low notes it produces — Alden illuminated the inner workings of his art.

Brown took a more anecdotal tack, discussing the origins of his friendship with Alden. When Brown was in his early 20s, he contacted Alden in New York and soon found himself playing alongside a musician he long revered. But Alden wasn't so much a teacher, said Brown, as "a big brother."

Their bond, forged in jazz, clearly endures.

March 21, 2016 | By Howard Reich

Early last Thursday evening, one of Chicago's most appealing jazz guitarists stepped behind the bar of the Green Mill Jazz Club, climbed onto the tiny stage there and began unspooling gorgeous strands of melody.

As Andy Brown wended his way through standards such as "Dancing in the Dark" and a range of bossa nova classics, listeners barely stirred. A room that can get a bit rambunctious come 9 p.m. instead fell to a hush, as everyone savored the progress of Brown's 5:30 p.m. set.

In effect, the audience was hearing something close to a jazz recital, albeit in an environment rather more relaxed than your typical, highbrow concert hall. Nonetheless, every shift in tone and dynamics that Brown offered resonated crisply through the house, the characteristic beauty of his sound matched by the textural intricacies of his solos.

Brown launched his weekly cocktail hour show at the start of the year, and it's already drawing a following, though surely no one relishes the opportunity more than the guitarist himself.

"It's a rare thing, solo guitar," says Brown. "Often it's done at restaurants or parties — it's ambience.

"I did (this) as a challenge, to see if I could pull it off. It's sort of tough to say: I'm going to play solo, just a little guitar, and try to keep the room somewhat contained. It was a challenge to see if I could get outside playing background music."

On this night Brown surely has, the luster of his sound, accessibility of his tunes and complexity of his arrangements converging to command attention. He acknowledges, though, that as crowds start filtering in for the big band that starts at 9 p.m. Thursdays, the conversation level goes up and his challenge increases.

Yet this new offering at the Green Mill attests to club owner Dave Jemilo's knack for coming up with attractions not readily encountered in most jazz rooms.

The idea, though, originated with Brown, who "just approached me," recalls Jemilo, who long has featured organist Chris Foreman from 5 to 8 p.m. Fridays, also behind the bar.

"I thought: Well, Chris does really good on Friday — would something work during the week?" adds Jemilo.

"I was hemming and hawing," until Jemilo went to check out Brown playing a solo appearance elsewhere. "It was really cool," says Jemilo. "The solo thing — I never realized how important it is to be able to (play) a certain way that it makes a different than playing with a lot of people. He's throwing a bass line as he's going along, and a melody, interspersing it all to make it sound like more than just a guitar. People were digging it, and it was good.

"And I thought: What the hell? This thing could work."

So far, says Jemilo, Thursday traffic has increased noticeably, with the added benefit that listeners arriving early for the main event at 9 p.m. are greeted with live music.

The open-ended engagement holds particular resonance for Brown, who for years played Sunday nights behind the Green Mill bar with organist Foreman and singer Kimberly Gordon. More important, the first time Brown walked into the Mill — when he was visiting from his native Cincinnati with singer Petra van Nuis, his wife — they encountered one of the best duos this city has produced performing behind the bar: singer Grazyna Auguscik with guitarist Paulinho Garcia.

"We were spellbound that something like that could be going on and packed on a Sunday night," recalls Brown of that evening in the 1990s.

"That was one of the things that made us fall in love with Chicago."

But the new slot isn't Brown's only steady engagement in Chicago. For four years, he has led his quartet Wednesday nights at Andy's Jazz Club, on East Hubbard Street.

Keeping a band together that long is no easy task these days, and Brown is celebrating his band's durability with a new album, "Direct Call" (Delmark Records). Like Brown's Green Mill engagement, the album focuses on what might be called the "mainstream" or "traditional" fare that is at the heart of Brown's work, though he winces a bit at those restrictive terms.

"People see me as a lot more traditional than the way I see myself," says Brown.

"When you see the Fat Babies," continues Brown, referring to the brilliant Chicago ensemble that focuses on repertoire of the 1920s and '30s, "you don't get a sense that it's old. It's like: Wow, it's so fresh.

"The stuff I like is what used to be called mainstream. It was the bread and butter: Oscar Peterson, Wes Montgomery, Stan Getz. Now people think that's passe or something, so it's harder to find that."

Indeed, in Chicago — where the new sound in jazz has been prized above all else since early in the 20th century — Brown stands as a kind of outlier.

What matters most, of course, is not so much the repertory he plays but how he plays it. Both the ebullient new recording and Brown's soft-spoken new solo set make a compelling case for the value of his art.

March 21, 2015 | By Howard Reich

One sure sign something important is about to happen on stage: Musicians are abundant in the audience.

There were plenty of them at Whiskey Lounge, in Evanston, on Thursday night, where a weekly jazz series was marking its one-year anniversary. And it wasn't difficult to guess why the pros had turned out to listen.

For starters, Chicago guitarist Andy Brown was celebrating the release of his eminently appealing new album, the aptly named "Soloist" (Delmark Records), in which Brown plays unaccompanied. Uncounted Chicago jazz artists have collaborated with Brown on club dates and recording sessions, and they know better than anyone the depth of his work and unpretentiousness of his manner.

But that wasn't the only cause for celebration. Thursday evening's event marked the 50th concert that Chicago pianist-impresario Steve Rashid was presenting at Whiskey Lounge, which has developed quite a following, judging by the full house on this occasion.

It's easy to understand why jazz listeners would value this offering. The room – which seats 70 at most – provides precisely the intimacy on which jazz thrives. Rashid opened the night as the welcoming emcee, encouraging listeners to pay close attention, and, indeed, the room transformed itself into something of a hushed concert hall once the performance began: no one stirred. Food and beverage service was uncommonly discreet, though whoever was noisily mixing drinks in the back of the room might want to pipe down a bit.

The setting gave guitarist Brown the opportunity for a beautifully sonorous set, and he made the most of it. Perhaps it should have come as no surprise that even when he held the stage alone, Brown emerged as a demure soloist, letting the music speak poetically for itself.

The warmth of Brown's sound and elegance of his delivery was apparent throughout the evening, but perhaps nowhere more tellingly than in Rodgers and Hammerstein's "I Have Dreamed" (performed as part of a Hammerstein medley with Jerome Kern's "The Folks Who Live on the Hill"). Here Brown presented himself as a jazz guitarist unafraid of melody, shaping the grandly arching main theme of "I Have Dreamed" with a degree of lyricism and legato not easily achieved on plucked strings. You practically could hear the words as he played the tune.

That same ardency of phrase emerged in up-tempo material, as in Dietz and Schwartz's "By Myself," the piece that closes the "Soloist" album. Even as rhythms surged forward, Brown took pains to keep the theme in the listener's ear.

Not everything, however, was quite so genteel. In "Freak of the Week," by John Coates, Jr., Brown emphasized funky chords, crazy syncopations and a gritty blues manner (well, gritty by Brown's easy-on-the-ears sensibility, anyway). And in "Drum Boogie," also from the "Soloist" album, Brown produced copious melodic invention, one riff answering another, one line tumbling into the next and the next.

After the first set, impresario Rashid began an onstage interview with Brown, another distinctive feature of the Thursday-night sessions at Whiskey Lounge. For those who couldn't make the show, the proceedings were live-streamed at steverashidpresents.com, where past performances are archived for online viewing.

It all adds up to a clever and entrepreneurial way of presenting jazz, giving Chicago-area listeners yet another attractive forum for the music.

June 18, 2013 | By Howard Reich

Inspiring music-making isn't necessarily loud, aggressive, self-aggrandizing or heavily promoted.

Consider what happens early every Wednesday night at Andy's Jazz Club, where the superb but serenely understated Chicago guitarist Andy Brown leads a quartet. Like him, his band mates speak softly but poetically. Though bigger stars draw larger crowds to more glittering stages across the city, few match the casual elegance of Brown's quartet.

Last Wednesday, when Brown and friends began to play, it was a good bet that the wait staff outnumbered the audience. A sea of empty tables indicated that the downtown office crowd hadn't yet gotten out of work.

But as the music developed, the room filled – especially when busloads of high school students from Texas streamed inside to sample bona fide Chicago jazz. They chose their venue well.

Brown opened the evening gently, with the standard "How About You," yet there was much more at work here than just a routine traversal of an age-old tune. From the outset, Brown and pianist Jeremy Kahn offered passages of intricate counterpoint, two seasoned jazz musicians challenging each other to keep up. Drummer Phil Gratteau and bassist Stewart Miller, each a veteran of uncounted Chicago jazz bands, accompanied them sleekly.

Everyone took a breath when guitarist Brown offered an extensive, introspective solo opening on John Lewis' classic "Django," a tribute to gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. Brown's pastel tones, softly stated melody lines and delicately rolled chords conveyed remarkable intimacy in a room that can get rowdy (and soon would). Before long, pianist Kahn was transforming the tune with a blues-based solo, the musicians eventually taking "Django" quite far from its origins.

Yes, it's true, tunes such as Neal Hefti's "Li'l Darlin'" and Lerner and Loewe's "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" (from "My Fair Lady") tumbled into the realm of cliche long ago. That doesn't mean, however, that formidable jazz musicians can't still make something of them. In "Li'l Darlin'," a staple of the Count Basie repertory, Brown surely disarmed even jaded listeners with long, silken lines while bending pitches in cheeky ways. And the guitarist's solo on "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" made a strong, soulful case for melodic simplicity.

Amid all this hyper-sensitive playing, it must be noted that the Brown quartet's version of Johnny Hodges' "The Jeep is Jumpin'" needed a little more jump. The musicians made up for it later, generating some heat in Joe Pass' "Catch Me" and showing grit in Blue Mitchell's "Fungii Mama."

Perhaps they were inspired by the arrival of those Texas students, who instantly ramped up the energy level in the room.

Even so, the easygoing nature of this ongoing engagement became clearer than ever during Brown's second set. Between songs, he leaned into the microphone, offered a little stage patter, addressed the students and then caught the eye of one of the waitresses.

"Hey Barbara," Brown said, for all to hear. "Could you put in a chicken sandwich for me? I've got another gig after this."

Not something you'd hear in most jazz venues in Chicago, but surely that's part of the charm of the engagement and the setting – four musicians performing as nonchalantly as if they were in their own living room, but with exacting musical standards. The tunes may be quite familiar, yet the performances prove that the jazz mainstream runs quite deep here.

Later this year, Brown will be releasing his much-anticipated recording with the eminent guitarist Howard Alden, a hero and colleague of his. That album could do much to raise Brown's profile, though from the general nature of his work, you get the impression that notoriety doesn't mean a great deal to him.

To Brown, it's the music that counts.

May 2011 | by Hans Kraus

Most of the songs featured by the American duo of Petra van Nuis and Andy Brown on Friday evening at the "Neustadt Jazz Club" in "Steinhäuser Hof" were already "Oldies but Goldies" before these 36-year-olds were even born. However, these songs still today enjoy great popularity, not just with jazz fans, and are among the standards of the genre.

The musician-couple from Chicago, whose tour included six gigs in Germany after the Benelux countries, apparently had spent a long time studying the Great American Songbook and had selected many of the most beautiful tunes to present live to their European audience. It is said that Andy Brown—an absolutely exceptional guitarist who accompanied megastar Barbara Streisand, during a performance on the Oprah Winfrey Show watched by 30 million fans—commands a repertoire of over 1,500 tunes.

His wife, Petra, whose ancestors hail from the Netherlands near Eindhoven, possesses the necessary vocal volume to suitably interpret them. She succeeds not just with her wide tonal range, but she also imbues the pieces with a lot of expressivity, which she conveys very emotionally. The couple brought along a total of 24 classics to Neustadt, most of which, like "Manhattan," "The Shadow of your Smile" and "You Make Me Feel So Young," can be found on records by Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Frank Sinatra.

They started out with a composition from 1928, "You Took Advantage of Me," written by Richard Rogers. Here van Nuis/Brown used the version by Ella Fitzgerald and guitarist Joe Pass as their point of departure, which enabled them at the beginning of the show to impressively demonstrate their capabilities. It very quickly became clear what a brilliant guitarist Andy Brown is and what an individual style he has developed in the course of his life as a musician. The modesty and restraint that he displays next to the stage have also become components of his playing. His sparingly inserted solos do not appear to be add-ons, but rather develop from the rhythm work and thus present themselves rather as obvious ingredients of the particular composition, not as virtuoso, improvised solos going off on their own. Brown is capable of presenting his complicated arrangements so that the listener often has the impression that three musicians are playing simultaneously, namely a bass, a rhythm and a solo guitarist. Despite his class, he always remained somewhat in the background and preferred to place his wife Petra into the center of the action. But she too refrained from large gestures and preferred to let her vocal qualities speak for themselves.

And they are so great as to have been repeatedly applauded in mid-performance by the audience, who was enthusiastically swept along. In that respect it did not make any difference whether they happened to be interpreting Latin American rhythms, such as "One Note Samba" by the unforgotten Anonio Carlos Jobim, or the rather quiet, melancholic tones, such as those struck in the Artur Schwartz/Howard Dietz song "Alone Together." The longer the concert lasted, the more familiar were the performed pieces, which finally reached their high point with Gene Kelly's "I'm Singing in the Rain" from the Hollywood classic, "Singin' in the Rain." Nevertheless, there naturally still had to be an encore. It also consisted of a tune that became known through a film, namely "Running Wild," originally sung by Marilyn Monroe in "Some Like it Hot."

[Photo caption] Experts in their field: Petra van Nuis commands an enormous vocal range, which she employs full of nuances; guitarist Andy Brown knows how to present his sophisticated arrangements so that one gets the impression there are three musicians are onstage.

May 2011

The packed Wiesloch Jazz Club in the Old Train Station experienced an enthused musical start to the second Sunday in May with international class. Guest performers on the next-to-the-last stop of their two-week tour through Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany were Petra (vocals) and Andy Brown (guitar) from Chicago, whose latest CD "Far Away Places" is currently getting rave reviews in the international musical press. Petra van Nuis captivated her audience from the first song with her highly expressive and versatile singing. With the subtle presentation of her performance and her charming moderation she made the great jazz and Latin standards immediately comprehensible and alive for her audience. Her accompanist (and husband) Andy Brown proved to be a topnotch guitarist, whose sensitive and varied accompaniment ingeniously supports his partner. His virtuoso solos were repeatedly followed by thunderous applause. After this performance it became clear to everyone why a mega-star like Barbra Streisand recently chose this exceptional musician to be in her band for a major television appearance. The impressively modest and likeable duo was effusive about the atmosphere of the Wiesloch Jazz Club ("Can't we transplant the Club right now to Chicago?") and thanked the knowledgeable and attentive audience for their warm reception.

September 2010 | By Howard Reich

Is it possible to turn back the clock on jazz history without slipping into mere nostalgia? Apparently so, judging by the joyous, swing-era music that guitarists Howard Alden and Andy Brown played over the weekend at the Green Mill Jazz Club. Though neither artist can be considered a household name – except in some very sophisticated households – each commands considerable credibility in dealing with pre-bebop jazz.

Alden played the guitar part for actor Sean Penn in Woody Allen's 1999 film "Sweet and Lowdown," about a fictional guitarist profoundly influenced by gypsy-jazz master Django Reinhardt (Alden also coached Penn in how to handle himself on the instrument). Chicagoan Brown, meanwhile, plays straight-ahead guitar accompaniments for various vocalists across the city, most notably his wife, Petra van Nuis, and Kimberly Gordon.

Put Alden and Brown together, then add a bassist and drummer similarly attuned to 1930s-era rhythm, and you have a sweet evocation of the sound of the fabled Quintet of the Hot Club of France (minus, of course, the violin, which Stephane Grappelli played opposite Reinhardt to silken effect). Even without a lead melody instrument, however, Alden and Brown captured the exuberance and optimism of this music in a way that guitarist Gonzalo Bergara's quartet ultimately failed to do at the Green Mill last month.

So why did the Alden-Brown partnership triumph where so many others have faltered? Why were they able to make a historic musical idiom sound at once freshly urgent and utterly authentic? For starters, the two guitarists – plus bassist Joe Policastro and drummer Bob Rummage –understand how to achieve the buoyant swing rhythm that's at the core of pre-bebop vernacular. With Policastro, Rummage and one of the two guitarists consistently riding a propulsive swing backbeat, the other guitarist was free to take flight melodically.

Alden and Brown alternated front-line duties, but even here, their solos never stood much apart from the ensemble texture. Instead, their fleet melody lines were woven into the band's corporate sound. In essence, these four players formed a single rhythmic organism – regardless of who had the lead. The sheer headlong momentum of this music-making easily captured attention and simply never let go. Moreover, both Alden and Brown acquitted themselves as tasteful, musical players. For all their easygoing virtuosity – particularly Alden's – they placed the emphasis on musical phrase rather than pyrotechnics (though Alden couldn't resist a little flash in the old standard "Will You Still Be Mine").

As if to underscore the Reinhardt connection, Alden and Brown dug up Barney Kessel's tune "I Remember Django," sustaining a crisp pulse even at a relaxed tempo. The way the two guitarists played off of one another suggested that their partnership ought to continue – preferably with Policastro and Rummage in the mix.

September 2009 | by Michael Steinman

Petra and Andy are long-time sweethearts (now married) who make lovely intimate swinging sounds together. I caught them at their two morning sets at Jazz at Chautauqua, and they kept a roomful of people (otherwise busily dropping their heavy silverware) rapt.

Petra is a find: she has a delicate focused voice, doesn't overact or emote, has beautiful lilting time and musical wit. She honors the songs and their emotions. And she's no Imitation: when I first heard her, I didn't instantly think, "Oh, she's been listening to the Complete Recordings of _ _ _ _ _," which is a relief.

Andy impressed me immediately with his lovely chording, subtle melodies, and generous accompaniment. Many guitar players spatter the room with notes, gangster-style: Andy makes music. He can also provide incredible drive and subtlety to a band. He has a lovely tone and a quiet pulse.

And — even better — this duet shows just how well this pair of expert musicians listen to one another. They are worth listening to!

Playing a wistful SERENATA, a song I associate with big names (Sinatra and Nat Cole), Petra makes its yearning her own as Andy chimes behind and around her.

A surprisingly jaunty BLUE TURNING GRAY OVER YOU shows how well Mr. Waller's melodies work at any tempo as Andy summons up George Van Eps, which is a real accomplishment.

The leaves were beginning to fall on the grounds of the Athenaeum Hotel, so Petra and Andy performed EARLY AUTUMN in honor of the impending equinox.

And, just to show that this couple has mischief in its collective soul, they ended with RUNNIN' WILD, a performance with a sweetly wicked glint in its eye, as Andy and Petra have enough rhythm in their souls to fill the room.

Petra and Andy give us hope.

Michael Steinman is a freelance jazz journalist whose writing can be found in such publications as Cadence, All About Jazz, Coda, the Mississippi Rag, as well as in liner notes for many jazz labels. For more information, please go to www.jazzlives.wordpress.com

March-April 2009 | by Randy Freedman

Did you ever wonder where Chicago's top musicians and vocalists go to relax and enjoy live music when they have a night off? Who are the musical performers that other musical performers are consistently willing to spend their own hard-earned cash to see and hear? About every month or so, two of them hold court at Katerina's Supper Club on Chicago's North Side, usually on Monday nights. They are vocalist Jeannie Lambert and guitarist Andy Brown. Their audience on a Monday in late January was filled with local music personalities and fans like myself. Lambert is a seasoned traveler on the Chicago jazz scene. Brown is a more recent Cincinnati/New York transplant, who has steadily gained respect from musicians and fans alike since his arrival in Chicago five years ago. Each brings a unique set of musical talents and skill to their occasional partnership.

Though based in Chicago, Lambert's vocal skills are admired nationally, and her most recent CD "Alone With The Blues" (with pianist Judy Roberts) prompted this comment from Scott Yanow, one of the world's most published jazz historians: "The singer has to have lived life enough to completely understand and feel the lyrics, she has to be skilled at perfectly placing each note, and her lived-in voice has to be expressive without ever quite going over the top. Ms. Lambert manages all of that."

Other less experienced or simply less wise vocalists can sometimes wander hopelessly far from a melody. Sometimes they can disrespect classic American Songbook material with vocal histrionics, shrill screeching vocalizations passed off as stylizations, and worst of all, unrepentant attempts at outright imitation of great past vocalists that often embarrass all present to hear them. Instead of these unsuccessful cheap tricks, Lambert gives you double doses of the jazz singer's "Holy Grail," phrasing. I am talking about riveting, keep the audience on the edge of their seat phrasing. Phrasing that has the audience wondering at breaks, "How would this song or that song sound if Lambert sang it?"

Andy Brown is one of Chicago's most sought after accompanists and has worked with top vocalists Kurt Elling, Paul Marinaro, Spider Saloff, Kimberly Gordon, and Brown's wife Petra van Nuis, to name just a few. His guitar playing is always melodic, understated, and involving; drawing the audience in with multiple techniques and textures instead of the guitar pyrotechnics that other players like to show off with. Brown's ability to seamlessly "walk the bass line" (reinforce rhythm by playing some of the bass notes) while carrying the melody, invariably gives his guitar a fuller, richer, more complete sound that suggests the presence of multiple instruments existing only in the mind's eye. While skillful and sensitive in all his playing, Brown seems to show a higher level of personal involvement when playing Bossa Nova, and brings a special flair to that music. This was demonstrated that evening during outstanding solos on "How Insensitive" and "Useless Landscape."

Other highlights of that particular Monday included a rousing Dixieland-style rendition of "Sweet Georgia Brown" during which the duo was joined by Lambert's husband, trombonist Russ Phillips. Lambert's vocals were exceptionally compelling on "Emily," "East Of The Sun," and "This Time The Dream's On Me." Also featured was a charming version of "Little Jack Frost," performed by guest vocalist Petra van Nuis.

A city like Chicago offers listeners many options, every night of the week, to hear different kinds of music performed in a variety of venues. If you have only enjoyed live music, and particularly jazz, as part of a crowd in a large, impersonal theater-like setting, or have just moved away from the club scene, I cannot recommend highly enough giving smaller, intimate venues like Katerina's a try. The Monday night sessions with Andy Brown and Jeannie Lambert are the perfect place to start with the best of talent in a great listening environment.