KJ DENHERT Featured Releases: Album No. 9 KJ's 9th release features acoustic versions of classics like Alfie and the Beatles' Help.
PRESS [PRESS RELEASES] 2009-03-01 Jazz Times - Dal Vivo Review Dal Vivo provides a superb introduction not only to her feisty, soulful Aretha-meets-Joni vibe but also her formidable songwriting skills.
KJ Denhert Dal Vivo a Umbria Jazz Jazz Times March 2009 Nowhere more than in the unpredictable world of jazz is it true that necessity is the mother of invention. Hence Karen Jeanne Denhert’s progress from spandex-clad rock chick to financial analyst for Dannon yogurt to self-invented, self-promoted, self-produced jazz diva (and self-taught guitarist) who formed her own label, Mother Cyclone Records, in 1996 and released six albums before aligning herself with the Harlem-based indie Motema Music early last year. Since 2002, Denhert has earned an annual artist-in-residency at Italy’s renowned Umbria Jazz Festival. Dal Vivo, captured at Umbria in 2008 and made possible by a grant from Women in Jazz Inc., marks the first recording of one of her festival performances. For those unfamiliar with the wild-haired songstress, Dal Vivo provides a superb introduction not only to her feisty, soulful Aretha-meets-Joni vibe but also her formidable songwriting skills. Of the session’s 10 tunes, seven are self-penned, ranging from the self-assurance of “I Got Time” and shrugged acceptance of “He’s Not Coming Home” to the pragmatic wisdom of “Little Problems” and the semi-auto-biographical salute to showbiz survival that is “August Clown.” But Denhert is equally good at delivering killer covers, as evidenced here by an aching, folk-rock reading of “Ticket to Ride,” a mellow, dreamy “Over the Rainbow” and an iridescent “Message in a Bottle” that rivals The Police’s origional.
