By Andrew Poretz*** Jazz pianist-vocalist Champian Fulton, who consistently wows in her usual trio format, brought her latest endeavor, Flying High: Big Band Canaries Who Soared, to Birdland Theater for six sets with a quartet of Neil Miner (bass), Klas Lindquist (visiting from Sweden, alto sax, clarinet) and Charles Ruggiero (drums). 
The Flying High concept was created and developed by Jazz at the Ballroom, a San Francisco Bay-area nonprofit, led by executive director, Suzanne Waldowski Roche, committed to keeping swinging, classic jazz thriving, Fulton serves as music director for the project.
Those female big band singers being profiled—the canaries—were of the 1930s and 1940s swing era and include the likes of Billie Holiday, Anita O’Day, Ella Fitzgerald and others. Fulton sets up each show with narrative that paints an evocative picture of 18-20 musicians (always men) on low-amenity band buses traveling the country with a lone female singer. A first-rate pianist with a dynamic voice, she hosts a changing roster of girl-singer guests (the series has already toured in various cities to date, with an album recorded); she saves her own singing for last.
This current program was kicked off with Fulton providing an instrumental swinger led by Lindquist, before bringing up Australian jazz vocalist Olivia Chindamo. Dressed in a red, sequined “flapper” outfit, the singer affected a showy appearance that brought to mind the girl band singers in noir movies. Chindamo, with a multi-octave soprano, has a clear tone, an assured command of the jazz idiom, and uses her hands while singing as if they were her instrument. A fine entertainer, she displayed some wild scat abilities on “What a Little Moonlight Can Do” (Harry M. Woods), made famous by Billie Holiday 
with Teddy Wilson & His Orchestra. For a lively rendition of “Manhattan” (Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart) Chindamo brought her fiancé, tenor saxophonist Evan Harris, to the stage. Lindquist returned on clarinet for a torchy “You’ve Changed” (Bill Carey, Carl Fischer), which Chindamo performed in homage to Ella Fitzgerald.
Rising star Ekep Nkewlle, who appeared in the very first Flying High program, has a deep, rich bottom register and a fairly impressive range. On a fast, bluesy “Stormy Weather” (Harold Arlen,Ted Koehler), first sung and made famous by Ethel Waters at the Cotton Club in 1933 and subsequently recorded with the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra, Nkewlle really took her performance up a notch: after the break, she sang an entire octave up and killed it. A positively dreamy “In a Sentimental Mood” (Duke Ellington, Manny Kurtz) was especially enhanced by Lindquist’s evocative sax solo. Nkewlle closed out her set with a fun take on “See See Rider Blues” aka “C.C. Rider” (author unknown), a 12-bar blues dating back to at least 1901, but made famous by Ma Rainey in 1924. Her audience call-and-response a la Cab Calloway had the joint jumping.
Though both “canaries” were sublimely excellent, Fulton really did save the best for last. Her singing 
on “I Cried for You” (Gus Anheim and Abe Lyman,Arthur Freed) was inspired, and her piano run on the break was sizzling. Miner had an equally hot bass solo, and the quartet “traded fours” to finish the tune. Fulton also performed a thrilling “Home (When Shadows Fall)” (Harry Clarkson, Geoffrey Clarkson and Peter van Steeden), a hit for Helen Humes with the Count Basie Orchestra. She finished her segment with “Just for a Thrill,” written and first sung by pianist-vocalist-composer-arranger and leader, Lil Hardin with her eponymous swing orchestra (Hardin became Louis Armstrong’s second wife in 1924).
For a rousing finale of “I Love Being Here with You,” Fulton brought back Chindamo and Nkewlle. Lindquist’s sax here was especially soulful and emotive. Flying High is a great concept. With such skilled performers and a vast supply of material from which to choose, this writer looks forward to the next edition.
Photos by Andrew Poretz
