| Jazz |
Reimagining the Standards: Jennifer Madsen Finds New Light in Old Songs.
It takes a particular kind of courage, and more than a little artistry, to release an album built on songs that many listeners already know by heart. Too often, albums of covers land flat: faithful but uninspired, technically competent but emotionally empty. Reimagine, the new release from jazz vocalist Jennifer Madsen, is a striking exception. From the opening bars, the album makes its case not simply as a collection of interpretations but as a work of genuine artistic vision.
What first captures the ear is Madsen’s voice. She is not, strictly speaking, an interpreter of material; she is a singer of presence and character, with a vocal identity closer to an instrumentalist than to a traditional “frontwoman.” In this respect, she belongs in the lineage of artists such as Manhattan Transfer, singers who understand their voices as malleable instruments capable of shading, bending, and coloring a song rather than simply carrying it. Madsen treats melody as clay, shaping and reshaping it with both precision and daring.
That quality defines Reimagine. The album bears a title that might have been hubristic in another’s hands, but here feels entirely apt. There is no grandstanding, no over-arrangement, no urge to show off. Instead, the record reveals an artist deeply attuned to her own strengths, and a singer who emerges from this project larger and more distinctive.
Much of that success lies in the company she keeps. Pianist and arranger Brent Edstrom is at the core of the album, and his fingerprints are everywhere. Edstrom is one of those rare musicians who seems equally at home across disciplines: a pianist of considerable sophistication, a composer of orchestral works, a jazz improviser, and a technologist who has spent as much time in studios and scoring rooms as on stage. His résumé is formidable: Prairie Songs: Remembering Ántonia, a song cycle created in both France and the United States; two concertos for piano, jazz, and orchestra; and The Song of the Lark, recorded with Tierney Sutton, Jeff Hamilton, and Jon Hamar. Yet nothing about his contributions here is self-indulgent. His arrangements seem to dissolve into the songs themselves, supporting Madsen with a subtlety that suggests not only technical mastery but deep empathy for the singer’s voice.
There is a kind of nobility in musicians like Edstrom, whose careers often unfold in the background, on television scores, in recording studios, in collaborative projects that rarely put their names in lights. Yet it is precisely that quality of restraint that shines on Reimagine. He brings out the glow in Madsen’s voice rather than competing with it. The result is a partnership that feels less like singer and accompanist than like two artists conversing in real time.
The best evidence comes midway through the album, on the fifth track, “Over the Sea.” Here, Edstrom strips the accompaniment to its bare essentials, leaving Madsen’s voice suspended in air. The effect is devastatingly simple and yet profoundly affecting. It is the kind of performance that reminds us why the human voice, unadorned, remains the most direct instrument of all. It is not about virtuosity. It is about sincerity, intimacy, and the ability to move an audience without adornment.
The pacing of the record is also worth noting. Rather than a series of disconnected tracks, Reimagine feels sequenced with a narrative arc. One can easily imagine the album as a live performance, charting an evening’s journey from the singer’s first confident notes to the final, exhausted smile at her musicians and audience. Madsen gives the impression of an artist willing to leave everything on stage, to pour herself into each song as though it were the only one that mattered.
This sincerity carries beyond the music. Even her website identifies her simply as “Jazz Vocalist & Performer,” a modest description that undersells her range but accurately reflects her ethos. Other artists might load their bios with accolades, awards, and technical credentials. Madsen instead seems content to let the music speak for itself. That modesty, combined with her energy and her timelessly poetic sensibility, makes her all the more compelling.
If most albums of standards feel like exercises, pleasant but predictable, Reimagine insists on being taken seriously as art. It is not a project of nostalgia, nor a museum piece, nor a clever recycling of familiar material. It is an album with its own atmosphere, its own pace, its own voice. And it succeeds because Madsen and her collaborators approach it not with pretension but with passion, craft, and respect for the material.
In the end, Reimagine does what its title promises: it allows us to hear familiar songs anew, through the clarity of an artist who knows her strengths and the wisdom of musicians who support her vision. If all cover albums were this carefully considered, this heartfelt, critics like us would have far less to complain about, and far more to celebrate.
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, August 17th 2025
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Musicians:
Jennifer Madsen, Voice
Brent Edstrom, pianist/arranger
Clipper Anderson, bass
Mark Ivester, drums
Tracklisting:
Body and Soul
I Can’t Give you Anything But Love
Willow Weep For Me
Honeysuckle Rose
Beyond The Sea
I (Who Have Nothing)
Gone
In The Wee Small Hours
You Don’TKnow What Love Is
Mewan To Me
Someone To Watch over Me