“tunes that echo the feel of standards, without dipping into a single musical or lyrical cliché.” – Downbeat Vilray
Rachael & Vilray has been a musical act ever since Rachael saw me play. I performed a very short set of covers and said she wanted in. Her voice is singular, agile, beautiful, and is the most rewarding instrument to write for. I found this when we started performing original music together. In the years since we began, our configuration has ranged from an intimate duo to a nine-piece formation. No matter the set-up on stage, my friend Rachael and I sing right to each other, tell stories about how the songs came to be and relate them to the many old love songs we love to love.
There’s a lyric on this album that summarizes the qualifications of the musicians who made it: “we’ve all heard the legends.” Each of us has keenly absorbed the work of a pantheon of jazz giants that inspires and informs this music. Some names suggest a constellation of techniques, flourishes, and accents that illuminate a corner of the musical universe. And if these original songs provide any light, it reflects some past brilliance that we admire.
Eleven of these songs are my own, and I’ll say a bit about the thrill of writing in this style. I love stories told by characters. The era’s repertoire is rooted in songs for theater and films, so a lot are written in the first person. The songs come from the angle of a single character, rather than reflecting an omniscient narrator or the writer themself. I also love how the music of language is explored in this idiom.
– Vilray, New York City, Summer 2022
Recommended for Fans of Lake Street Dive, Madeleine Peyroux, Diana Krall and Julie London.
LEARN MORE: https://rachaelandvilray.com/
- Genre:
- Jazz
