La Tanya Hall —”If Not Now, When…”

December 15, 2025

La Tanya Hall’s recent album, If Not Now, When…, is her first since she recovered her voice after having lost it for a while in a bout with COVID. The album has a short song list—a mere eight tracks. And while the collection may not inspire a lightning flash on a single listening, repeat visits reveal some subtle, quite-wonderful moments of music-making. You will likely find yourself returning for many more listens.

Hall is a jazz singer, but the program here reflects an interest in some very disparate sounds. Randy Newman’s “Let’s Burn Down the Cornfield,” as sung by Hall, is a bluesy, restless song, imagining a hot night in a swampy, rural part of the American South, where the liquor jug gets passed back and forth, and where reckless acts of vandalism and torrid lovemaking go hand in hand. 

Duke Ellington and Irving Mills’s “Azure” gives Hall an opportunity to produce long, powerful, stretched-out syllables as bassist Gerald Cannnon thumps out a contrasting accompaniment. As for the final track, Aretha Franklin’s “Day Dreaming,” it’s reconfigured as something approaching a country-rock song, with band guitarist Marvin Sewell and guest harmonicist Gregoire Maret providing 1970s vibes.

But the album’s highlight is definitely the elegant and playful “A Turtle’s Dream” (Abby Lincoln, Laurent Claude Cugny). Here, below what she calls “the house above me,” the title character professes appreciation for her unusual existence as a sea turtle, having come to learn that “moving slowly is not really bad” because it allows her, eventually, to “see the wonders of the deep.” Perhaps a metaphor for Hall’s own ability to adapt to and work her way out of voicelessness, the song apparently means a great deal to this steady and thoughtful singer.

Her versatile band consists of Sewell and Cannon, along with Cyrus Chestnut (piano) and Mark McLean (drums). In addition to Maret, guests Eddie Henderson (trumpet) and Gary Bartz (alto sax) are on hand with their considerable talents.

My reply to the question If Not Now, When… would be: “Now’s been just great. Next time, maybe something with even more horsepower.” (Or would that be turtle power?)

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Released October 10, 2025 on the Blue Canoe Records label; Michael Leonhart, producer.

About the Author

Mark Dundas Wood is an arts/entertainment journalist and dramaturg. He began writing reviews for BistroAwards.com in 2011. More recently he has contributed "Cabaret Setlist" articles about cabaret repertoire. Other reviews and articles have appeared in theaterscene.net and clydefitchreport.com, as well as in American Theatre and Back Stage. As a dramaturg, he has worked with New Professional Theatre and the New York Musical Theatre Festival. He is currently literary manager for Broad Horizons Theatre Company.