For those unaware, swing pulses through New York-based jazz vocalist and pianist Champian Fulton’s veins. Since her arrival on the scene in 2003, Fulton has been lauded for her poise and allure.

A live Champian Fulton performance ensures a radiant ambiance pronounced by the multi-talent’s clarion vocals and lush keys. Birdland Jazz Club was witness to this glory in September of 2022, when Fulton enjoyed a four-night stint without repeating a single tune, all while documenting what would become her latest live album.

Those tapes yielded the polished Meet Me at Birdland, Fulton’s sixteenth album as a leader, due out April 7th, 2023.

In 2015, Scott Yanow wrote that Fulton “grows in stature with each recording,” after the release of her prized date, Change Partners. Now a veteran on the scene, this seasoned jazz messenger presents a collection of sophisticated standards sprinkled with one prolific instrumental original on her cultivated new offering.

Breathing charm into the turn of each lyrical and instrumental phrase, Fulton soars in the company of bassist Hide Tanaka and drummer Fukushi Tainaka.

1. Welcome to Birdland (0:28)
2. Too Marvelous for Words (5:41)
3. Every Now and Then (7:42)
4. Evenin’ (6:26)
5. Theme for Basie (5:51)
6. Happy Camper (6:42)
7. Just Friends (4:14)
8. I Didn’t Mean a Word I Said (3:48)
9. I’ve Got a Crush on You (7:16)
10. I Don’t Care (9:35)
11. Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most (4:43)
12. I Only Have Eyes for You (2:45)
13. It’s Been a Long, Long Time (3:35)

This lushly flowing new live recording opens with a quick, but lovely introduction (by club owner Gianni Valenti) to the stage of the trio and then we are off and running on the passionately enkindled Too Marvelous for Words, which is quickly followed by the 1935 leisurely ballad Every Now and Then, the spirited melodies and rhythms within Evenin’, the impassioned instrumental Theme for Basie, and then we get brought forth the uplifting and wholly enthusiastic Happy Camper (a Fulton instrumental original) and the warmly-sculpted waltz Just Friends.

Along next is one of my own personal favorites in the shape of the delightful finger-snapper I Didn’t Mean a Word I Said and the veritably glistening I’ve Got a Crush on You, and they are in turn backed by the sternly forthright, near ten minute, blues-infused I Don’t Care, a simply adorning arrangement of Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most, and after thanking the audience for coming out, and even encouraging them to come back for the next night’s show (“Every set list is totally different. We never know what’s going to happen,”), the album rounds out on a playful I Only Have Eyes for You, closing on the lushly orchestrated It’s Been a Long, Long Time.

www.champian.net