sophie milman: make someone happy

Canada’s contributions to world music range from outstanding (Martha Wainwright, kd lang) to near-diabolical (the Vegas-friendly caterwauling of Céline Dion); thankfully, twenty-three year old jazz star Sophie Milman belongs firmly in the former category. Born to a Jewish family in the USSR, brought up in Israel following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and uprooted once again to move to Canada at the age of fifteen, Milman is certainly more cosmopolitan in upbringing than most people. This fact shines through in her highly inventive and eclectic repertoire, now re-examined and re-exemplified with the release of her second album, Make Someone Happy.

Milman’s musical coming-of-age occurred in Israel, where she became hooked on old vinyl jazz recordings that her family had rescued and brought with them from the chaotic upheavals of glasnost-era Russia. After winning a music competition and touring Israel, her move to Canada brought fresh opportunities to explore her chosen genre and to flourish. A lucky break at a jazz club night – tellingly named ‘Real Divas’ – led to her performing on TV and then to the release of her first, eponymously-titled album in 2004. That album became the most downloaded jazz album of the year on iTunes, also charting at #12 on the US Billboard jazz album chart.

There’s every reason to believe that Make Someone Happy ought to achieve similar success. As Milman’s evocative voice slides, drips and caresses its way through a richly varied set of songs – some familiar, some new – it soon becomes apparent that this is phenomenal stuff. Take for example ‘Matchmaker, Matchmaker’, a classic piece of musical schmaltz from the 1964 Broadway blockbuster ‘Fiddler On The Roof’. Milman’s intelligent and cadenza-laden interpretation of the song stylistically displaces it from 1905 Tsarist Russia directly to a New Orleans jazz bar in the ‘60s, full of Creole character and thick with the heady scent of Gauloises. At the centre of this reinterpretation is Milman’s versatile timbre and technical brilliance, bell-clear in places and edgier in others.

A great example of Milman’s range of sounds is to be found in the album’s title track, a sophisticated blues song enriched by a velvety purr and occasional bursts of throatier intensity. Similarly, ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green’ gives Milman a chance to demonstrate her wry humour, bouncing through a clever song whose message of hope to those who lament their self-perceived failings must be the thinking listener’s version of Christina Aguilera’s ‘Beautiful’.

In the face of such consistent excellence, it ought to be difficult to choose the best song on the album. Not so; ‘Eli, Eli (A Walk To Caesarea)’ hits musical highs far surpassing anything else on the album. Milman’s hypnotically sonorous voice lends itself perfectly to this painfully beautiful Hebrew classic, whose lyrics lament the loss of childhood wonder at the glittering seas and mysterious ruins of Caesarea. This song, above all others, enables Milman to demonstrate the frankly astonishing emotional power of her voice.

Make Someone Happy is a strong indication that Sophie Milman is to jazz what Mounties are to her adopted homeland: iconic, unique and nigh-on indispensable. Hopefully Milman will also prove to be as enduring.

[Koch; May 12, 2008]

Written by: Andy Wasley

Tags: make someone happy, sophie milman

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 12:37 am and is filed under albums & EPs, reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.