Album Review: The Sound of Love from Tania Grubbs Quintet

Album:  The Sound of Love
Artist:  Tania Grubbs Quintet
Label:  Travlin Music
Website:  Taniagrubbs.com
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Taniagrubbsquintet.bandcamp.com/album/the-sound-of-love
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Soulful and expressive, vocalist Tania Grubbs serves audiences an engaging delivery of classic pop favorites, jazz standards, and a handful of original work on her 2024 release The Sound of Love.  The entire album was recorded in one day, supported by her band mates that includes pianist David Budway, guitarist Ron Affif, drummer James Johnson III, and her husband Jeff Grubbs on bass.

The program opens with “But Not For Me," as Grubbs's nuanced vocals indulge in a playful interplay with the bopping drums and keys.  The cheerful mischief and frolicking exchanges will remind audiences of stage performances at lounge rooms across the Las Vegas strip.  The organic interactions are reminiscent of the jovial mood generated in the melodic patterns of "Bill Bailey, Won't You Come Home," penned by Hughie Cannon from 1902.  Old-school tendencies are a recurring theme in the arrangements.

Grubbs and her band continue their playful interplay in their treatment of Norman Gimbal and Henry Mancini's “Slow Hot Wind," branding the track with glittery keys as Grubbs's undulating vocals display a wide breadth in her vocal range.  Her vocal elasticity and latitude fills the arrangement, guiding the listener through the crests and ebbs, and every nook and knoll.

Her spin on Earl Klugh and Al Jarreau tune “(A Rhyme) This Time" navigates a dulcet phrasing across fluid keys.  The effect is reminiscent of soulful, old-school vocalists like Melissa Manchester and Juice Newton.  The balladry scroll of the keys holding up Grubbs's vocals across the title track produces a dreamy ambience, advancing a sensitivity and reverence for Charles Mingus's "Sound of Love."

Moving to a swinging waltz along the bluesy tint of "Strange Meadowlark," written by Dave and Iola Brubeck, Grubbs's vocals nestle along the melodic swells, intimating human vulnerability.  “The Sculptor’s Hands,” an original by Grubbs, was inspired by internationally acclaimed Pittsburgh-based wood sculptor/jazz lover Thaddeus Mosley. The soft texture and willowy sonorous of the keys bond intuitively with Grubbs's gently stroked vocals.

Steered by Grubbs’s elegant vocalese, the music turns pensive along “Something to Live For,” written by Pittsburgh native Billy Strayhorn.  She conveys a human longing to need someone to live for, a pining in her voice that penetrates to the listener's core.  Flexing her versatility, the arrangement for Paul McCartney and John Lennon's rare gem "Blackbird," infuses a shuffling rhythm with a quasi-Baião-samba tilt that synthesizes with Grubbs's femine purr beautifully.

Grubbs's reworking of John Denver’s “Sunshine on My Shoulders” shrouds the listener in euphoric ethers against the sedate rattle of the bass and drums.  “I Can Tell You Are Always There,” by Budway and Pittsburgher Lou Tracy is cloaked in a bluesy mist, contrasting, the bopping rhythm of "Four" buttressing Grubbs's sizzling scatting vocals.

Henry Mancini’s tune “Dreamsville” is touched up with a torchlight glisten, creating a tranquilizing landscape for Grubbs’s smooth phrasing, shifting to a reflective versing along Tadd Dameron's "If You Could See Me Now."  Grubbs's vocals soar through her duet with pianist Budway on “Two For The Road,” an iconic piece by Leslie Bricusse and Henry Mancini.

Grubbs's vocals are the guiding thread into the stories, emoting human vulnerabilities in her delivery.  She curates the songs to her vocal elasticity and breadth, performing torchlight ballads, waltzs, and playful swing with sensitivity and sentimentality.

Tania Grubbs originally hails from Ohio.  She has been singing all her life in many different settings and genres, learning about jazz and the Great American Songbook while attending Youngstown State University, Dana School of Music.  Moving to Pittsburgh in 1996, Grubbs has been a featured vocalist with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Civic Light Opera, Chamber Music Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Jazz, Pittsburgh Jazz Society, Westmoreland Jazz Society, West Virginia Jazz Society, WD Packard Big Band and Concert Band, and Pittsburgh Bass Symposium.  She was featured as a guest soloist with the Boca Raton Philharmonic Symphonia and acted as Co-Music Director at the Fairmont Pittsburgh Hotel,

Her voice flexes a visceral touch, expressing the emotional depth of the lyrics with sensitivity and sentimentality.  Her nuanced voicing is substantive, recollecting of Melissa Manchester's soulful luster  Her smooth vocalese recalls of Juice Newton, revealing classic old-school aspects.  All evidence shows Tania Grubbs's talent is world class calibre.

Musicians:
Tania Grubbs - vocals
Ron Affif - guitar
David Budway - piano
James Johnson III - drums
Jeff Grubbs - bass