For her first appearance at the Festival international de Jazz de Montréal, Stella Cole was accompanied by her equally talented double bassist, drummer and pianist. In front of a packed Studio TD, the New York-based American appeared all dressed in red.
After a purely instrumental first song, she took to the stage and immediately introduced her pianist in the first song, followed by the other musicians in the third and fourth. She gave her musicians space, almost in every song, to do their respective solos, while she mastered her voice perfectly.
“It’s my first time in Montreal, I haven’t seen much of the city yet, but I’ve got all day tomorrow, so if you’ve got any recommendations, I’d love to hear them,” she advises, between songs.
This singer, who became hooked on music thanks to films such as The Wizard of Oz, with which she was obsessed from the age of three, loves to perform the greatest jazz classics. Her voice is so reminiscent of the artists of the ’60s and ’70s that you sometimes feel you’re taking a musical trip back in time to New York. Her covers of “Singing in the Rain,” “It’s Magic,” and “Cry Me a River” are all brilliant, with the instruments sometimes communicating with each other.
Her second album, It’s Magic, is due for release at the end of the summer, but we were treated to one of its tracks, released the day before the show, “Till There Was You,” on Decca Records.
The lighting scheme seemed to go very well with her red outfit, shifting from red to blue, depending on the song and the mood. She alludes to the film Casablanca, which marked her youth, but my favourite moment is her rendition of “I must have done something good.”
“But I want to move here,” she joked, after an audience member offered her a bouquet of flowers after the 2nd song. Well, I must admit that her interpretation of “Perhaps” was remarkable. That said, she doesn’t move much on stage, except to let her musicians shine when she steps aside a little, but other than that, she seems a little shy. One thing’s for sure: this young brunette with a contagious smile charmed the Montreal audience, many of whom queued long and hard to get into the TD Studio free of charge.
