Hearing Gretchen Parlato’s spellbinding version of the Herbie Hancock song ‘Butterfly’ was unforgettable when the eloquent LA-born singer’s star glimmered into view in the 2000s.
The unique qualities she revealed soon brought her worldwide acclaim. ‘Butterfly’ would open in an onstage silence only broken by Parlato’s soft handclap on a Brazilian groove, eventually turned into a wordless vocal hook, and then the awestruck natural-world homage of the lyrics written by Hancock’s sister Jean. She would time phrases between deliberately emphatic in-breaths like cymbal hits, and arrestingly morph words in and out of abstract sound.
The Wise Ones arrives as her third album since 2021, when she returned from six years…

You need to be logged in to view the rest of the content. Please .

« »