Budding Jazz Star Anaïs Reno Blasted the Roof Off Birdland Theater with Her Debut CD Celebration

By Marilyn Lester***Fast-rising jazz star Anaïs Reno came home to Birdland to celebrate her debut CD, Lovesome Thing, the music of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, released during pandemic lockdown. As expected of this great young talent—she’s all of 18 years old—Reno knocked the socks off her audience. There’s no doubt she’s destined to true greatness. Like the two icons upon whose shoulders she stands, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, Reno developed a mature voice and skill set at an early age. Fitzgerald was 17 when she conquered the Apollo Theater and Vaughan a mere 16 when she began her professional career.

What’s even more thrilling than having a true feeling for jazz, is that she was precociously attracted to the work of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn from the start (and that was at age 8). Ellington wrote for his band. His most melodic work had lyrics added, sometimes years after the tunes were written. Strayhorn was a child prodigy who was classically trained and first aimed at a career not in the jazz world but in the concert hall. The work of both these masters is harmonically complex. For one so young to “get it” is a true mark of talent that’s headed for the stratosphere. Her opener, Ellington’s “I Ain’t Got Nothing But the Blues” (lyric by Don George) was phrasing perfection in capturing a mood well beyond years.

The absolute test of excellence for a jazz artist, particularly one who sings the work of Strayhorn, comes with “Lush Life.” Reno melds intellectual and analytical capacity with a thirst for knowledge and an emotional understanding of the material at hand. This combination of abilities is in itself quite staggering. Thus, she hit any objection to her inclusion of “Lush Life” in her repertoire right on the head. Noting that there are songs she’s been told are really for mature singers, not teenagers, she gently informed her audience that Strayhorn wrote the tune when he was a teenager. Boom. Indeed he did. He began it at age 16 and worked on it for many years more. It was a song that he was incredibly protective of, mostly not allowing anyone to sing it until he met Lena Horne. Till his death he remained wary of anyone undertaking it. Strayhorn knew exactly how he wanted “Lush Life” sung. And truly, most singers don’t know their way around it. Reno nailed it to perfection.

This delightful evening embraced other Ellingtonia, including a slightly syncopated “Still in Love,” one of Strayhorn’s more cheerful tunes. But Reno also included jazz standards by others (many of which Ellington over his 50-year career played in concert and recorded). A standout was “Autumn Leaves,” which was originally a French composition by Joseph Kosma with a lyric by Jacques Prévert. English lyrics were added by Johnny Mercer. Reno delivered the tune in both languages most impressively. Announcing she has embraced an understanding of Shakespeare as a way of interpreting lyric, she offered “Would You Believe” (James Lipton, Cy Coleman) with a beautifully rising arc of storytelling; she dedicated the tune to Carmen McRae, whose seminal version, Reno said, was life altering when she heard it.

Guest artist during the evening was singing trumpet player Benny Benack III. He’s a young musician building a fine career, whose energy closely matches Reno’s. He was strictly in instrumental mode for this outing, blowing on a jamming “Caravan” (Juan Tizol, Duke Ellington), which Reno began with an exotic vocalizing opener to drum accompaniment. Billy Strayhorn’s “Take the A Train” (theme song of The Duke Ellington Orchestra), which usually began an Ellington set, ended this one. Bennack again offered trumpet to the mix while Reno sang lyrics (somewhat disputed but generally attributed to Betty Roche) and demonstrated she can indeed scat.

Throughout this marvelous set of music, Reno was accompanied by the Emmet Cohen Trio, with Cohen on piano, Phil Norris on bass and Joe Farnsworth on drums. At age 31 Cohen is already a jazz star. A prodigy, he began playing piano at age three. His creativity and dynamism are also a perfect match for Reno’s sensibilities and vocal prowess. When the trio opened the set with “That Old Feeling” (Sammy Fain), Cohen’s virtuosity soared from his fingers into and throughout the room. During “Lush Life” he built a mood that paralleled Reno’s vocal interpretation. Memorably, genius was paired with genius.

How much was all of this array of talent noticed, appreciated, prized? Beyond enthusiastic applause there was demand. And so an unplanned encore ended the set. A swinging “Satin Doll” (Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Johnny Mercer) answers that question. It was the kind of evening that people may well talk about in the future: “I was there,” they might well say.