Jami Templeton
The Shape of My Heart
January 8, 2022
Reviewed by Elliot Zwiebach
Jami Templeton has built her career as a classical singer, performing big ballads and diva-sized arias. Her new CD shows off her quieter, more introspective, more contemplative side.
In her debut jazz album, The Shape of My Heart, she is soft, gentle, and delicate, with no hard edges; she’s more intimate, more tender, more inward-looking. This is Templeton exploring more personal emotions and depths of feeling than she’s displayed in the past. This Templeton is indeed showing the shape of her heart, and it is filled with love and inspiration.
She’s not putting up any fronts with grand vocal runs but rather giving listeners a window into her deepest soul. In her liner notes she reveals that she was looking for healing following a long battle with chronic Lyme disease and then Covid, after which “my heart feels softer and thus my approach to life and singing also longs to be softer and more intimate.”
She achieves her goal brilliantly. Backed by a quartet of superb musicians, Templeton gives voice to her own emotions and provides opportunities for the musicians to express their passion as well in a sublime blend of lyrics and music.
The 11-track album offers a blend of genres—American standards, Broadway, country-western and blues—sung by a consummate artist and backed by strong jazz accompaniment from Andy Langham on piano (who also did the arrangements), Edwin Livingston on bass, Charles Ruggiero on drums, and Joel Frahm on tenor saxophone.
One of the CD’s highlights is Templeton’s stunningly beautiful rendition of “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” (David Mann/Bob Hilliard); it’s sumptuously lush and mellow, with a gentle piano solo by Langham and an effective bass solo by Livingston, both of which perfectly reflect the downbeat mood of the song.
Two other highlights include a playful, swinging vocal on “Black Velvet” (Christopher Ward/David Tyson), with excellent support from all four musicians that ends with an extended instrumental; and a lilting take on “Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man” (Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II) that reflects a more upbeat, hopeful mood than the song’s more usual melancholy approach, reflected in Langham’s fingers seeming to fly over the piano keys.
Templeton sets the tone of the album literally from her first note on the opening cut—a quiet, ruminative “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground” (Willie Nelson), followed by the title song, “Shape of My Heart” (Gordon Sumner/Dominic Miller), with a simple, unfettered delivery abetted by Langham (on melodica) who provides an effective backing for the emotion-driven piece.
The album’s longest cut is “Let’s Stay Together” (Al Green/Willie Mitchell/Al Jackson Jr.), which encompasses Templeton’s confident vocal and a delicate, extended instrumental at the beginning and end, followed by the desperation of “Need You Now” (Hillary Scott/Charles Kelley/Dave Haywood/Josh Kear) and the slightly more optimistic “Room at the Top” (Tom Petty).
The CD also includes a sensuous take on “Ain’t Misbehavin’” (Andy Razaf/Fats Waller/Harry Brooks), a plaintive vocal on “I Fall in Love Too Easily” (Jule Styne/Sammy Cahn) that’s echoed by an extended bass solo by Livingston, and a mesmerizing version of “The Dance” (Tony Arata) with strong sax backing from Frahm.
