Vocalist Valerie Joyce

REVIEW: THE POWER TO DREAM ALOUD

By Gregory J. Robb
Jazz Improv Magazine Review
Summer 2004 Volume Four

Valerie Joyce is a talented composer and musician for whom much opportunity exists. Her debut album, Reverie, is a competent step into jazz recording. The brightest light for the Seattle resident is her voice, a resonant wisp of serenity that can be massaged for power and effect.

Joyce immersed herself in challenges that are endemic to producing one's first record: technical production, arrangement, comfort and style. Valerie's decision to showcase range and ability produced mixed results but will, in the long term, greatly benefit the musician.

Valerie Joyce can write. "Oasis," the first of four original songs within, represents fundamental penmanship. On "Silent Sky," Valerie's voice stirs like a breeze off Seattle's Puget Sound in a state of mind that undoubtedly prevailed when she penned this song. The composition's endearing simplicity casts optimism on the integrity of the idea. On "Orchid," Joyce pursues her vocals the power of quietude. On "Christmas Eve," we hear the first overt studio effects and they enhance the nostalgic feel of vocal-piano duet. In a future incarnation, one bets that Joyce would imbue this arrangement with strings. Time will bring a welcome complexity to Joyce's future writings.

Reverie is rooted in a sparse and, therefore, limited sonic sensibility. When one possesses the pipes, as Valerie Joyce does, studio effects can be tastefully employed to powerful ends. Such indulgence would have enriched not only the fundamental effects of instruments such as saxophone, flugel horn and flute, but the players' opportunities to maximize those machinations. This kind of playing could generate an aural environment with more affected post-production. As Joyce relaxes, so will her arrangements.
Jazz vocalists habitually contain instrumental improvisation and, in this case, the finished product felt abbreviated. Valerie Joyce has the potential of using voice and instruments to reciprocate and augment each other. Spontaneity can be difficult in a recording studio. Sometimes, it is best to just hit ''play'' and ''record,'' and dream aloud.

Reverie is an adept entry to the artistic continuum of recording. Valerie Joyce must now cast her rich timber in different aural contexts in order to diversify her vocal talent. A drier, less airy, delivery would prompt a more purely improvised, spontaneous incantation. Valerie can also look forward to the learning curve that inevitably accompanies studio production experience.
When she breathes, technically and aesthetically, Valerie Joyce could a force of jazz.