A deliberately careful songwriter with an at times Dylanesque flair for unlikely rhymes (he matches "spokes" with "hoax," for instance, and mostly gets away with it), a certain Nick Drake-like fragility (due in large part to his voice, which is pitched high and sounds at times eerily like Billie Holiday), and a subtle African pop feel (he has Femi Kuti singing backing vocals on one of the songs here), Brett Dennen is certainly singular, and at his best, he catches a breezy, mellow groove t   [ read more ]

CD $15.18

Occasionally, one comes across a male vocalist who has a very female style of singing and actually sounds like he could be a woman -- and that can be an artistic plus. It has certainly worked well for Jimmy Scott, one of the finest male jazz vocalists of all time. And having a female-sounding voice is also a positive for singer/songwriter Brett Dennen, whose So Much More demonstrates that he shares Scott's strong appreciation of Billie Holiday. But unlike Scott, Dennen is not a {\   [ read more ]

CD $13.28