Angela Verbrugge • Love for Connoisseurs

I must confess that, for the longest time, I thought of singing as music for people who couldn’t play anything. I naively put instruments in a hierarchy of difficulty with violins at the top, probably, piano somewhere in the middle and guitar just above the cowbell—which shared a tier with drums and bass. (This expert analysis came from someone who, apart from one month failing at the harmonica, had only ever played keys.) Singing didn’t even feature in this pyramid—it was just making shapes with your mouth, after all. Anyone can do that, right? This was how I felt as a Britpop-loving teen—it was only when I discovered jazz that my mind was changed, quickly realizing that Fitzgerald, Gaillard, Holiday, and the likes controlled their voices with the same expertise Grapelli exhibited with his bow or Tatum on his keys. Canadian songstress Angela Verbrugge is another virtuoso of the vocal cords, master manipulator of a mouth through which pure jazz flows. Don’t take my word for it—see also the 2020 JazzTimes Readers’ Poll, which nominated her for “Best Female Vocalist” alongside the legendary Diana Krall. Oh and Verbrugge went on to win that year, by the way. Her previous album, The Night We Couldn't Say Good Night, provided ample evidence to support this accolade, with recent release Love for Connoisseurs doing nothing to undermine it. Every original track overflow