Carolyn Lee Jones, Eklektika Review

by Constance Tucker

The first thing Carolyn Lee Jones does on Eklektika is make you wait. Not long. A fraction of a beat here. A held vowel there. A phrase that seems content to linger before finding its place again.

It happens early enough that it could be dismissed as a stylistic choice. By the third track of the album, it starts to feel more fundamental. Jones sings as though the clock inside the song belongs to her, and that is the allure of her singing.

That quality proves especially useful on a record built from varied materials. Across nine tracks, Eklektika moves through standards, contemporary songs, cabaret settings, bossa colors, soul-jazz textures, and intimate piano-ballad territory. Produced by Jones and recorded in Dallas with a close-knit group of collaborators—including pianists Brad Williams and Peter Rioux, drummer Andrew Griffith, guitarist Roger Boykin, percussionist Jorge Ginorio, and saxophonists Shelley Carrol and Mario Cruz, the album covers considerable stylistic ground. Waiting feels natural.

Part of that comes from Jones’ voice itself. Warm without being heavy, clear without sounding clinical, it remains recognizable whether she’s leaning into a swing rhythm or settling into a quieter ballad. More important, though, is the way she shapes a line.

On “Morning in Crown Heights,” she spends much of the performance leaning against the pulse rather than riding directly on top of it. A phrase trails behind the piano. A melodic turn stretches further than expected. More than once, she sounds as though she’s arriving after everyone else. Then the next cadence arrives and suddenly the entire performance feels perfectly balanced again.

The effect is conversational. Jones does not sound like she is delivering a finished interpretation. She sounds like she is expressing her way through the song to reveal its inner pathways.

That same instinct appears in “Detour Ahead,” though in a different form. Supported by piano, bass, and brushes, Jones settles comfortably into the lower part of her range. She rarely leaves the end of a phrase untouched. A note opens into vibrato. A cadence softens. A lyric gains weight because she chooses to stay with it slightly longer than expected. Nothing feels exaggerated. The song simply unfolds at its own pace, naturally expressed.

The pianists support Jones’ role throughout the album. Williams and Rioux are interested in accompanying Jones in creating a space for the pacing to inhabit. Introductions establish mood, fills answer vocal ideas, and harmonic movement supports and opens space. It must matter when filling it. The record evolves around this effective conversation between singer and piano.

“Skylark” provides one of the album’s most enjoyable surprises. Beneath the familiar melody sits a groove with more contemporary bounce than listeners might expect from the standard. Jones responds by refusing to settle into a single reading of the song. One phrase shortens. Another stretches. A melodic contour changes shape on its return. By the final section, the performance feels less like a preservation of the tune than a continuing negotiation with it.

The same curiosity animates “Embraceable You.” Stripped down to voice and piano, the performance leaves every decision exposed. Jones responds with some of her most playful singing on the album. Small embellishments appear and disappear. Phrases lengthen. The emotional intensity builds gradually rather than arriving all at once.

One of the album’s quieter strengths is its diction. Even when Jones delays a phrase or stretches a rhythmic figure, the lyric remains clear. Words retain their shape. Consonants arrive cleanly. The listener never has to choose between following the story and appreciating the phrasing.

That balance becomes especially appealing on “Tell Me All About It (Reprise).” Floating over bossa-inflected rhythms and soulful textures, Jones sits comfortably behind the beat without sounding detached from it. The performance has an easy, unforced quality that masks how carefully everything is being listen to underneath.

The closing “Hearts Desire” moves down to voice and piano once more. Here Jones sings easily between darker lower-register colors and lighter falsetto textures. The transitions arrive naturally, almost casually. Nothing is announced. Nothing is overstated. The song simply grows where it needs to grow.

The title Eklektika naturally draws attention to the album’s variety, but variety is not what will capture the listen’s attention. What will is Jones’ way of moving through a song. Consistently she stretches phrases, delays resolutions, and reshapes familiar melodies without ever losing sight of where the music is headed. A singer can assemble an eclectic repertoire. Fewer can make such different material feel as though it belongs to the same artistic voice. On Eklektika, Carolyn Lee Jones does exactly that.