Erin Boheme - What Love Is (2006)

If there were a jazz version of ‘American Idol,” (dedicated to overall musicianship instead of just singing) one can easily imagine Concord Records’ latest crop of young artists--Christian Scott, Taylor Eigsti, and Erin Boheme--being the three finalists. And there isn’t a singer on that popular program with the self-assuredness, raw talent, and obvious affinity for music more sophisticated than the normal fare among those in her age group (she’s 19) that Erin Boheme displays here. There are plenty of singers who have been recording much longer and who are much older who have not developed the sensitivity that she demonstrates on her debut, What Love Is.

Boheme can also write, as the many original collaborations on this disc attest. The opening track, “Someone to Love” is a lovely slice of pop balladry that will make comfortable listeners who approach jazz-tinged music with some degree of anxiety. Labelmate Taylor Eigsti appears on piano, as he frequently does throughout What Love Is. Trumpeter Christian Scott is also heard on several tracks, including the playful “One Night With Frank.” Boheme cleverly works in quotes both lyric and melodic from a variety of well-known Sinatra songs. It could easily have become corny, and on some level it still is, slightly, but Boheme so effortlessly strikes the right balance between doe-eyed hero worship and flirtation that it works very well. “Let’s Make the Most of a Beautiful Thing” features a lush but subdued Corey Allen string arrangement and tasteful piano support by David Foster.

The title track has a real rainy night, West Coast vibe, with Scott’s trumpet providing a trace of Chet Baker melancholy. It’s not only a really nice song, but Boheme’s vocals are wonderfully mature. She does ok with “Teach Me Tonight,” but it’s not one of the stronger performances on this disc. For the most part, Boheme is best singing her own songs. Her version of Tracy Chapman’s “Give Me One Reason” strips the song of its blues underpinnings, weakening it considerably. On the other hand, her performance of her own “Make You Happy” and “Anything,” the latter with Joe LaBarbera on drums, is nothing short of perfection.

Boheme does connect with a pair of cover songs that feature Tom Scott blowing some inspired tenor sax. “Let’s Do It” is sultry and full of tension in all the right places, while her cover of Peggy Lee’s “I Love Being Here With You” is a great match of song and singer. Boheme offers an amalgam of Lee, Anita O’Day, with maybe just a whiff of Blossom Dearie, and the results are tasty indeed.

When someone shows promise as a singer, that is one thing. When someone shows promise as a singer and a songwriter, that is another. Based on the evidence on What Love Is, Erin Boheme is going to be around for awhile, and should be interesting to watch in the future. In the meantime, this is a great CD that should have something for both longtime jazz listeners and those who are more familiar with the finalists on American Idol than they are with great jazz vocalists of the past fifty years or so.