Renowned Jazz Vocalist Prepares for Upcoming Mt. Kisco Performance

By Jordan Goodman

On Saturday, Aug. 17, jazz singer-songwriter, arranger, composer and bandleader Andrea Wolper takes her talents to Mount Kisco for an evening at Jazz on Main.

Wolper has been making waves in the contemporary vocal jazz scene for the past 30 years, starting her professional career by singing well-known standards but carrying her vocal talents through myriad styles, including bossa nova and free improvisation.

Her latest studio album, “Wanderlust,” released in April, showcases the fullest range of her jazz ambitions with 12 tracks, including seven originals and five covers.

Wolper, a Brooklyn resident, was born in northern California and developed an early passion for singing and acting, eventually pursuing a gig at the renowned Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater.

“At a certain point I found myself at a crossroads or a fork in the road, and soon I was entering the world of jazz and I just thought it felt like home and I haven’t looked back since,” Wolper said.

With “Wanderlust,” she certainly isn’t looking back, going the distance with her knack for experimentation and improvisation with originals and covers. Despite there being no central theme connecting the work, it conveys a personal journey through Wolper’s deep appreciation for jazz and all the possible avenues the genre can take you. The love, or lust, for continuing to explore these paths is what gives ‘Wanderlust” personality, range and a heaping helping of natural charisma.

Early in her career, Wolper first turned to the Great American Songbook, but she found her niche as an arranger and lyricist.

“It just opened so much in me…I didn’t know I was going to be an arranger and I feel like these are gifts that the music gave me,” Wolper said. “It was opening much more creativity that I didn’t know was even in me.”

Whereas her first album was full of standards, over time there was a more creative and experimental edge.

“I do cover a lot of ground, I don’t stay in one lane, I’m certainly not the only jazz vocalist who does that, but it’s not that typical for most,” Wolper added. “It took me a while to get back into the studio to make this album…because I had so much different material to work with. I just had a lot of music that could’ve been on the album and I couldn’t figure out what goes with what.”

She started organizing the songs into different categories, eventually getting help from her longtime musician friend and the album’s co-producer Jeff Lederer, who worked alongside Wolper to bring out her creative vision. Recording the latest album was a two-day process, and despite initial fears about how it would come together, she’s happy with how those sessions went. In her words, she just had to “trust the music.”

Collaboration has always been a key element for Wolper when arranging, recording and performing her material. Although the band lineup has had multiple changes across her four studio albums, the chemistry between her and her bandmates arises naturally. It’s almost like there’s a blueprint for each song, but the magic from each track comes from every member getting to “shine” and match each other’s energy.

On “Wanderlust,” there are two tracks where she’s riffing with one instrumentalist, with her voice flying over lush piano leads from John DiMartino on “Still Life” and her tongue-in-cheek delivery on “Nevermore” against upright bass patterns from her husband, Ken Filliano. On other tracks like the ominous “Nature of Life” or “Cisluna,” toward the end of the record, the full band goes into improvisatory territory with a meditative quality coming from Wolper’s voice serving as a guide for the pieces.

Meanwhile, the classics come in the form of jazz standards, including a reworking of Ray Charles’ “Light Out of Darkness” and Wayne Carson’s “Dog Day Afternoon.” There are also covers from the likes of Carole King and Sting. On some tracks Wolper is unafraid to sing tunes without words to them, including the bossa nova-inspired “Sobe E Desce,” in which the main melody came to her on a whim, immediately prompting her to record it onto her phone.

“One of the things I love about jazz is the value of individual voice, that each person has their own sound and their own thing to say,” Wolper said. “When you have people with developed voices to come and play together, there’s an own unique, developed sound that could only come from those individuals.

“We’re all freelancers, sometimes the lineup is expected to change. Sometimes the people who you play with the most aren’t available and you call someone else.”

Wolper explained that for the CD show of her album, she had to have a pianist who hadn’t played the material because her main keyboardist had another commitment. The fill-in performed beautifully after just one rehearsal.

Wolper has been performing in jazz clubs in New York City and elsewhere for a long time, with the most notable performances coming at the Blue Note Club, Mezzrow, 55 Bar and Kitano. She’s also toured the U.S. and internationally, earning several composing and gig residencies along the way. The lineup for each show varies depending on the size of the venue and which musicians are available.

Her upcoming performance in Mount Kisco will be a trio setup, with Wolper taking vocal duties alongside longtime guitarist Michael Howell and Filliano.

“The three of us have done a lot of playing through the years, and we just have a nice rapport and understanding of each other,” Wolper said. “We’ll be doing some material off the new album, and while it might not be the same, we learn how to adapt these songs for various ensemble sizes to perform.”

“There’s a level of spontaneity and intuitive communication that we have,” she added. “We can do a song that we’ve played before but it will sound fresh and our chemistry is what really resonates with audiences.”

In addition to performing, Wolper formerly served as president of the nonprofit International Women in Jazz. She also teaches private workshops and master classes in vocal techniques and songwriting.

The Aug. 17 show at Jazz on Main, which is located at 37 S. Moger Ave. in Mount Kisco, is scheduled for 7 p.m. For tickets and more information, visit  www.jazzonmain.com.