Gina Zollman
Anywhere with You
Catalina Jazz Club, Hollywood, CA, March 22, 2023
Reviewed by Clifford Bell

One of my favorite things about the nightclub stage is that it provides an environment for reinvention, for retrospection, and for rebirth. Gina Zollman took full advantage of the stage at Catalina Jazz Club, Los Angeles’ premiere listening room, to launch her debut CD, Anywhere with You. Putting her best foot forward, Zollman surrounded herself with the cream of the crop of the West Coast’s most acclaimed musicians: Bill Cantos (piano), Jennifer Leitham (bass), Dave Tull (drums), Marek Szpakiewicz (cello), and sharing piano duties, Steven Applegate.
To begin the evening, Zollman quipped that the show was a combination of the themes, “Lost Love” and “What I Weighed,” offhandedly adding “two shows for the prices of one.” For better or worse, she was absolutely true to her word. On one hand, the evening offered a beautifully realized set of adult contemporary music and the Great American Songbook, artfully arranged by either Steve Rawlins or Steven Applegate. Zollman’s warm, conversational alto was perfectly presented in an exceptionally classy production. Her sincere and heartfelt delivery particularly shined on several haunting ballads, including “I’ll Never Find Another You,” “Small Day Tomorrow,” and the title track of her new CD. Less successful were the anecdotes related to weight gain and/or weight loss from her childhood to the present. I mentioned the power of the nightclub stage to reinvent because I’m aware of Zollman’s long presence in the Los Angeles music community.

Before her long-awaited debut CD appeared, she was primarily known for her cabaret performances and her one-woman shows which featured more comedy and self-deprecating humor. As a veteran performer, she is skilled and intelligent. However, I felt that this particular phase of her evolution amounted to an awkward combination of sophisticated song stylist, which she is, and jokey, distracting, storyteller. I think there’s an audience for either of these, but the two genres sat very uncomfortably next to each other. All in all, Gina Zollman offered us a first-class production, with amazing musicians and gorgeous arrangements. It also featured an excellent guest performer, Tod Macofsky, who is a handsome, genial charmer and who had the audience swooning with his two solo numbers: “The Best Is Yet to Come” and “You Don’t Know What Love Is.”