Bria Skonberg: Three Albums Compared

I have the pleasure to review this month three albums from a remarkable talent known to many readers of The Syncopated Times; trumpeter and vocalist Bria Skonberg. Her 2012 album, So is the Day, I include not only because it is my favorite but so it can also help mark her development since signing with Sony Masterworks on their revived Okeh imprint. With the assistance a big label can provide, she released a very slick self-titled album, Bria, in 2016 and followed it with another, With a Twist, last year. Skonberg plays a stellar trumpet—crisp, expressive—and she adapts it well to a variety of styles. I’ve heard her play effortlessly sitting in with mixed groups in a trad jazz setting, her 2012 album comes closest to that sound. But even on that album, you can already hear her flirting with the South American influences she favors on her two recent releases. The albums, perhaps understandably, become more lyrically-oriented under Sony. They recognize her potential to break out as a jazz personality. She has a terrific voice over which she shows increasingly effective control, album to album. Noticeably so between the two recent ones, only a year apart. The downside for the serious fan is we hear less of her playing. So is the Day placed longer cuts front and center, with room for the featured musicians, especially Bria, to demonstrate their talent. The new albums do