| Chanson |
Aubrey Johnson and the Art of Reimagining Song
The first impression arrives almost quietly: a voice suspended over a spare harmonic landscape, the arrangement unfolding with unhurried patience, each instrument entering as if stepping into light. It is in these opening moments that Aubrey Johnson’s album declares its intentions, not as a conventional collection of songs, but as an immersive musical environment, carefully shaped and deeply personal.
Covers albums, by their nature, often invite skepticism. Familiar material can tempt performers toward imitation or safe reverence, and listeners may find themselves wondering what new perspective could possibly justify another return to well-known repertoire. Yet Johnson, who is both composer and vocalist, approaches the form from a different angle. Her album balances original compositions of striking lyricism with a small number of interpretations chosen not for their notoriety but for their artistic resonance.
A telling example is her treatment of Joni Mitchell’s “Help Me.” Where many singers gravitate toward Mitchell’s most recognizable songs, Johnson selects one of her more harmonically subtle works. Positioned in the program after two original compositions, the performance feels less like a departure than a continuation, revealing the aesthetic thread that connects Johnson’s writing to Mitchell’s: a fascination with fluid melody and shifting tonal color.
Musically, the arrangement transforms the song. The tempo breathes more expansively, the harmonic voicings, particularly in the piano and guitar, are spaced to emphasize overtones and resonance, and the rhythm section resists any sense of rigidity, allowing phrases to stretch and settle. Johnson’s vocal line, delivered with a translucent clarity, draws out the poetic contours of the lyric rather than its conversational wit, illuminating aspects of the song that can easily remain in shadow.
Elsewhere on the album, interpretations of works associated with Lyle Mays and Kurt Elling serve as bridges across generations of jazz composition and vocal art. These selections never feel ornamental; instead, they function as points of dialogue, placing Johnson’s own music within a living continuum.
It is in her original compositions, however, that her artistic identity emerges most fully. Writing for her ensemble, Johnson creates soundscapes rich in shifting textures. Long melodic arcs unfold over harmonies that move with a kind of tidal inevitability, and the arrangements often rely on contrast, moments of near silence followed by passages of luminous density. Wordless vocal lines, at times recalling the purity and poise of a classical soprano repertoire, one might think fleetingly of Purcell, are nonetheless grounded in the harmonic language and rhythmic elasticity of modern jazz.
Johnson has spoken of the influence of mentorship supported by Chamber Music America, as well as her work with pianist and composer Billy Childs, in refining her approach to orchestration. That influence is evident in the precision with which each instrument occupies its space: the piano often functions as both harmonic anchor and colorist, the bass lines move with a lyrical independence, and percussion is used sparingly, more as atmosphere than propulsion.
Her musical sensibility is also rooted in a personal history that quietly informs the album’s emotional core. During her university years, Johnson developed a profound musical bond with her uncle, a musician whose touring schedule had limited their contact during her childhood, even as she attended his concerts and absorbed his work, including performances with Pat Metheny. When he learned that she was studying jazz, he reached out, offering guidance that would help shape her artistic path. That sense of lineage, of music as both inheritance and conversation, can be felt throughout the recording.
It also helps explain her affinity with artists such as composer Anthony Branker, on whose album Songs My Mom Liked she appeared last year, a project marked by its own sense of reflection and emotional depth. Both musicians share a commitment to works that are thoughtfully constructed yet deeply felt, resisting easy categorization in favor of sincerity and craft.
To appropriate a song so completely that it feels reborn rather than revisited is a rare achievement. Johnson accomplishes this not through virtuosity alone but through patience, imagination, and an unwavering clarity of purpose. By the album’s close, what lingers is less the memory of individual tracks than the atmosphere they collectively create, a luminous, carefully shaped world in which every sound seems to know precisely why it exists.
And in an era crowded with recordings, that sense of necessity may be the rarest quality of all.
Thierry De Clemensat
Member at Jazz Journalists Association
USA correspondent for Paris-Move and ABS magazine
Editor in chief – Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, February 7th 2026
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Musicians :
Aubrey Johnson, voice
Tomoko Omura, violin (1-5, 7-10)
Alex LoRe, bass clarinet (2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10) alto sax (1, 4) flute (5, 9) tenor sax (8)
Chris McCarthy, piano (1-5, 7-10), Rhodes (2, 5)
Matt Aronoff, bass
Jay Sawyer, drums (1-5, 7-10)
Track Listing :
1 Hope (Aubrey Johnson)
2 The Words I Cannot Say (Aubrey Johnson)
3 Help Me (Joni Mitchell)
4 Don’t Be Afraid (Aubrey Johnson)
5 Chorinho (Lyle Mays)
6 The Waking (Kurt Elling/Rob Amster/Theodore Roethke)
7 I’ll Never Need To Know (Aubrey Johnson/Gentry Johnson)
8 For Luna (Aubrey Johnson)
9 The Miracle Is In Us (Tomoko Omura)
10 Quem é Você (Close To Home) (Lyle Mays/Luiz Avellar)
Production Credits:
Executive Producer: Dave Douglas
Produced by Aubrey Johnson and Steve Rodby
Edited by Steve Rodby
Mixed and Mastered by Rich Breen
Recorded April 17, 18 and May 25, 2025 at Sear Sound, New York City
Engineered by Steven Sacco and Maximilian Troppe
In-Studio Production by Danny Jonokuchi
Photos by Lauren Desberg, band photo by Mariana Merez
Hair and makeup by Megan Sutherland
Recording studio photos by Tracy Yang
Graphic design by Kassandra Charalampi
**All arrangements by Aubrey Johnson, except for “The Miracle Is In Us,” by Tomoko Omura**