Angela Verbrugge • The Night We Couldn’t Say Good Night

Last year I edited a biography of John Hendricks, founding member of multi-award winning vocal trio Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. Together with Dave Lambert and Annie Ross (later replaced by Yolande Bavan), Hendricks popularized the style of jazz singing called vocalese. He would take instrumental swing and bebop standards by the likes of Count Basie and Charlie Parker, set words to their solos and—with help from his two colleagues—reproduce them in three-part vocal harmony at often head-spinning speeds. Having never really listened to Hendricks, the job prompted me to check out his catalogue. I ended up paying about $30 for the trio’s Sing a Song of Basie on vinyl, so bewitched was I by this breathtakingly nimble, ingeniously poetic style. So opens Angela Verbrugge’s 2019 album The Night We Couldn’t Say Good Night, with her lyrical gymnastics over Ray Gallon’s “I’m Running Late.” Crisp and clear like that of a musical actor, her voice rings like a crystal glass struck with a silver spoon. Like Ross and Bavan, she displays impeccable precision and an impressive range, without the smoky huskiness of tone displayed by the likes of Peggy Lee or Julie London. (I tend to prefer deeper and richer timbres, but that’s obviously a matter of taste.) Born in Ontario, Verbrugge was one of the youngest ever graduates from Toronto’s George Brown School of Performing Arts. Coa