The Leonisa Ardizzone Quartet - All in Good Time (2019)

The wait is over! After a ten-year recording hiatus, the Leonisa Ardizzone Quartet releases the aptly named “All in Good Time”! Joining Leonisa on this, her third album, are musicians that have been with her since the first. She is supported by pianist and arranger Jess Jurkovic, bassist Mark Wade, and drummer Justin Hines. The empathy shared among these musicians is so evident as to almost be taken for granted. The band’s sound is richly organic and revealing, providing the singer an ideal vocal environment. Ardizzone uses a combination of original compositions, standards, and smart adaptations to reflect the hurts, challenges, and triumphs of the past ten years. There are three originals, “When Hagar Ran” and “Ischia” both written by Ardizzone with Jurkovic and Hines and “Cyclone” composed by Hines. “When Hagar Ran” comes directly from Ardizzone’s study of the Old Testament coupled with brutal experience, presented over an anxious Latin vamp. “Cyclone” is just that bit of genius that occurs when the best minds meld in creation.

Included among the standards are the delightful surprises of Dave Brubeck’s vamping “My One Bad Habit” and a rocking scat-vocal treatment of Hank Mobley’s “This I Dig of You.” Ardizzone sings Martino and Brighetti’s “Estate” in the original Italian as if she owns it, showing off her warm and muscular alto voice like a suntan. “Someday My Prince Will Come” is deep in the program, sporting an Ardizzone-penned vocalese on Miles’ solo in an innocent song of adolescence. Child of the 1980s, the singer selects three from the soundtrack of her life. The Smith’s “Girl Afraid” is angst-ridden over Wade’s pungent bass playing as is true of her cover of the Pretenders’ “Kid.” But, it is an elastic and electric “Our Lips are Sealed” where Ardizzone transforms a cotton-candy ‘80s anthem into something ahead of where we are now.