| Jazz |
Dara Starr Tucker Returns with a Mature, Emotionally Resonant Album That Soars.
We’ve spoken of Dara Starr Tucker before, and favorably so, in 2023 (read here). Now, the acclaimed vocalist returns with a new offering that is at once more mature and profoundly moving. This latest album marks a notable evolution in both tone and artistry. Backed by luminous orchestration that sparkles like champagne, Tucker explores deeper interpretive territory, offering a series of compositions, many of them her own, that underscore her growing prowess as a songwriter and performer.
Among the seven original tracks are the poignant title piece Time Wouldn’t Wait, a meditation on impermanence; the radiant and uplifting Shining; the gospel-infused Tall Georgia Pines; and Brick Wall, a stirring reflection on grief and forgetting. Each composition is an emotional vignette, meticulously crafted and rendered with Tucker’s rare ability to weave jazz, soul, folk, and cinematic storytelling into a deeply personal tapestry.
Tucker’s compositional voice is not only authentic but increasingly assured. She demonstrates an uncanny capacity to balance the timeless and the contemporary, songs that sound as if they’ve existed for decades, yet carry the freshness of lived experience.
“I wrote Time Wouldn’t Wait as a way of making peace with the present moment,” Tucker said. At the album’s heart lies a quiet but urgent invitation: to be fully present, to recognize that nothing, not joy, not sorrow, not even the seasons, lasts forever. It is a call to honor the fleeting nature of life, and to remain awake to its beauty, its heartbreak, and its truth.
With elegantly crafted arrangements and a serene, centered vocal presence, Tucker delivers 11 tracks that glide between sophistication and soul. This is not merely an album to listen to, it is one to feel. “If time is fleeting, as we believe,” she says, “it is also rich with infinite possibility.”
Tucker’s artistry, however, is not confined to the recording studio. A Woodshed Network fellow and alumna of the esteemed program founded by jazz legend Dee Dee Bridgewater, she has toured and recorded with guitarist Charlie Hunter and co-wrote the Grammy-winning title track for Keb’ Mo’s Oklahoma. In 2020, she won the Silver Medal at the American Traditions Vocal Competition, also taking home the Johnny Mercer Award and the Ben Tucker Jazz Award. Her 2021 album, Dreams of Waking, reached No. 7 on JazzWeek’s national radio chart, while tracks from her self-titled 2023 release earned spots on Apple Music’s Jazz Vocal Essentials, Spotify’s Best Jazz Vocals 2023, and Amazon Music’s Vocal Jazz playlists, further cementing her status as a rising voice in modern jazz.
Tucker’s artistic life is full, a welcome sign for listeners and critics alike. She stands as one of the most compelling vocalists of her generation, blending the weight of jazz history with the perspective of a 21st-century artist. With Time Wouldn’t Wait, Dara Starr Tucker doesn’t just showcase her gifts, she carries the beauty of her art like a banner into the present moment.
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, July 24th 2025
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To buy this album (August 15, 2025)
Release Show: Nashville Jazz Workshop, September 13, 2025
Musicians :
Gary Versace, piano & organ
Larry Goldings. Piano
Rod McGaha, trumpet
Marcus Finnie, drums
Christian Euman, drums
Vicente Archer, bass
Simon Moullier, vibraphone
Tracklist :
Shining (It’s My Time)
Pure Imagination
Tall Georgia Pines
What Was I Made For
Time Wouldn’t Wait
Twilight and Mist
Happy To Be Loving You
Brick Wall
The Space
Waiting For The Night
I Have Dreamed