Alana Davis

(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

Alana Davis’ recording debut, Blame It On Me (Elektra, 1997), carried on a tradition still alive in New York’s Greenwich Village—the tradition of the erudite singer-songwriter who knows how to blend jazz and rock and soul and many other things into subtly intellectual songs (Phoebe Snow was doing this twenty years earlier).
Radio stations mainly played the velvety pop-soul of 32 Flavors (by Ani DiFranco), the sensual funky-soul of Love And Pride, and the trendy rap of Round And Around. But part of her cultural background belongs to the West Coast—to the sunny country-rock of One Day and the sophisticated folk of Joni Mitchell, to whom the piano romances Turtle and Weight Of The World seem dedicated.
The compositions are all substantial and elaborate (almost always over five minutes), tastefully arranged for a small chamber ensemble. Davis injects jazz into every pore (a soft melisma here, a piano improvisation there), and she also draws on South American music for the delicate bossa nova of Blame It On Me and the drowsy rumba of Murder. Much of the charm comes from her singing, from that undeniably seductive voice—“black” and yet at the same time “white”—that caresses the notes in a way none of the current stars could.
It feels like listening to a young Aretha Franklin in the measured soul of Crazy and a subdued Bessie Smith in the tender and spare Lullaby. All of the songs are pleasant to hear; but her personality is missing something, and above all she lacks a song that amounts to more than just background music.