The release of jazz great Carmen Lundy’s sixteenth album, Notes from the Wine Cellar, coincides with her being named a 2026 NEA Jazz Master, the highest accolade a jazz artist can receive. This is a highly personal project with Lundy contributing much more than just vocals. Produced with Elisabeth Oei, Lundy wrote all the songs, played Fender Rhodes, acoustic guitar, percussion, flute, French horn, created the backing vocals, keyboard programming, arranged the horns and strings, and even designed the album cover. She also handpicked her stellar musicians including Julius Rodriguez on piano and Hammond B3, Jermaine Paul on electric and acoustic bass, Terreon Gully on drums and percussion, Andrew Renfroe on guitar, and Tatiana Tate on trumpet, flugelhorn, muted trumpet, and programming.
This is Prince-level commitment to each and every aspect of the project. Given this investment, it is not a stretch to imagine that the songs themselves are just as personal—and they are. The first track, “In the Rain That Day” (Harry Whitaker, Lundy) is a bittersweet revery of a romantic past, made especially haunting by Renfroe’s guitar and the singer’s multiple vocals. The musical setting is more film score than jazz melody, but its beauty is undeniable. “No Better Love” dives headfirst into that romance with abandon, declaring “there’s no better love than what I’ll give to you…,” and that abandon is highlighted by Rodriguez’s keyboard work and Gully’s raucously rhythmic drums.
On “Thinking of You” Tate’s trumpet and the simmering joy of Lundy’s voice intertwine as the passion builds. The wordless passages of “Love and Freedom” (and elsewhere on the recording) are a hypnotic blend of chant and scat and blossom into the joy and hope on “the other side of the rainbow…like an unforgotten dream.”
“Another Color” poses the question, “Is there a hue more true than others?” as it grows into a more mature and complex evocation of the classic, “Being Green,” leading to the conclusion that “the color of my heart is all you have to see.” The poetry of Lundy’s lyrics throughout is a unique blend of simplicity and depth as it floats above the hypnotic melodies.
“Get to the Church on Time” is a raw, bluesy memory of faith and parents and children that splinters into a a raggedy, powerful mix of gospel, jazz and big band (with horn arrangements by Lundy and darkly evocative Hammond B3 by Rodriguez). Lundy delivers one of her best vocals on the thrilling “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” rising over the ever-building accompaniment like a stone skipping on water, lifting spirits along with her.
A magisterial piano solo leads into an incantation of the “New Moon Rising” by the singer, whose gentle flute colors and helps to define the poetry of the lyrics. The album closes with “Ain’t Nothing New but You” describing her lover as “the last wonder of the world,” in a deep, personal declaration of passion modernizing our expectations of what a love song is.
Carmen Lundy’s Notes from the Wine Cellar is a powerful statement by a true Master of Jazz which inevitably takes on a valedictory air as song after song, performance after performance, present the many colors and depths of one of our great jazz vocalists in full flower.
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“Notes from the Wine Cellar,” produced by Elizabeth Oei and Carmen Lundy; engineered by Don Murray; mastered by Eric Boulanger; released by Afrasia Productions.
Gerry Geddes, critic for BistroAwards.com, is an award-winning director, writer, teacher, performer, lyricist, and a contributor to the podcast Troubadours and Raconteurs. He conceived and directed the acclaimed musical revues Monday in the Dark with George (Bistro and MAC Award winner), Put on Your Saturday Suit—Words & Music by Jimmy Webb, and Gerry Geddes & Company (in its five-year residency at Pangea). He has directed singers André De Shields, Darius de Haas, Helen Baldassare, and Lisa Viggiano. He has been active in the cabaret world for over five decades and has produced numerous CDs; his lyrics have been performed and recorded here and in Europe. Gerry’s workshop, The Art of Vocal Performance, is regularly offered to singers of all levels. His memoir of life in NYC, Didn’t I Ever Tell You This?, was recently published and is available at barnesandnoble.com. He is currently at work on his first novel.
