This album extends outside of our normal range at TST, but I see Tom Rigney’s zydeco band scheduled at nearly every festival and I think an important segment of our readers will enjoy Juliet Varnedoe. This six-track album features a very New Orleans form of entertainment, inflected by zydeco and maybe Fats Domino, with strong elements of self-reflective darkness I associate with a Gen X, elder Millennial mindset that led to things like Goth Country and the punk fascination with folky Gypsy and Klezmer music. It’s hip. This is the sort of album that would be popular in an alternate universe where the rest of my generation progressed in the same direction I did. Maybe they did after all. The beats are a little heavy, electronic instruments are employed, and the “that’s not jazz... get off my lawn!!!” crowd may get nervous, but if they heard this album on the radio they would say “wow, that’s better than most of that kid's stuff.” She is definitely on to something.
Juliet Varnedoe wrote five of the titles. She has a great lyrical sense in both composition and delivery with lines memorable and full of recognition. This is music with cross-generational appeal and Juliet deserves a full album with label support. Juliet is attentive to quality in every aspect of this release. The physical CD is well packaged and showed up to me in a themed mailer, very possibly a first for m
