By Michael J. West | Published September 2025
I didn’t have a beautiful, evocative jazz take on Neil Diamond’s “Play Me” on my bingo card. Too bad for my bingo card. What singer Lauren Scales does with pianist Chris Grasso’s arrangement is the kind of transcendence that mere craftsmanship can’t convey. Vulnerability and undiluted expression mix with rhythmic nuance and attention to detail (with exquisite tenor sax fills by Mike Flanagan, the album’s third co-leader) in a moment of jazz singing as high art.
If the rest of Many Rivers isn’t quite so sublime as “Play Me,” it still packs in plenty of delights. The Diamond song’s tenderness gives way to a wallop on Thelonious Monk’s “I Mean You,” with Scales belting Jon Hendricks’ lyric (titled “You Know Who”) with glee and trombonist Steve Davis stopping in for a choice solo. Power and delicacy find parity on Frank Loesser’s “Never Will I Marry,” Scales’ joyful personality-stuffed vocal balanced by swinging Grasso and Flanagan solos and gorgeous accompaniment by Grasso, bassist Luques Curtis and dual drummers Richie Barshay and Charles Haynes.
But this isn’t simply a vocalist’s album, and the instrumentalists get their own space for zesty workouts. The big one is “Star Eyes,” Flanagan combining both of Charlie Parker’s arrangements against a deliriously, almost grimly percussive rhythm section and driving solos by Grasso and Curtis. Jimmy Cliff’s “Many Rivers To Cross” also gets solo juice (though Scales sings the final chorus) in a soulful rendition mindful of David “Fathead” Newman’s “Hard Times.” There’s something here for everybody.
