“Twenty-three year jazz veteran Lucia Newell is one of the most powerful
vocalists on the Twin Cities scene.” “Lucia Newell turns out to be one of those gifted vocalists whose conception
and intelligence is transcendent. Add to that some well crafted and conceived
arrangements played with snap, crackle, and the requisite pop, and you have over
an hour of music that is alive with authentic Jazz affirmation. Strayhorn would
be very happy and proud.” “Lucia’s a real jazz singer, one of the very few who’s really
dedicated to what I would call jazz music - one of the few singers I would pay
to see.” "When I first heard Lucia sing, she had a way of twisting the lyrics,
expressing the lyrics, that was very personal, gave it a different slant...Her
intuition, her muse, was very clear. She can do the ballad, very sensuous or smooth,
and she can swing her butt off. She’s got a lot of dimension. I love that.” “I love Lucia Newell's album "Steeped In Strayhorn'".
It is an absolutely wonderful album !!!
"Of course, I worked with Duke Ellington and "Swee' Pea"
- Billy Strayhorn.... during my years at Univeral Studios in Chicago.
What a wonderful and enduring tribute to Strayhorn to have Lucia Newell sing these
compositions from the Billy Strayhjorn songbook so well. Great work!!!
"When I hear Lucia sing "Lush Life", I can close my eyes and
see Billy Strayhorn in the control room of Studio 'A' working on yet another version
of that unbelievably poignant song. WOW!!!” “...one of the Upper Midwest’s most remarkable performers: the
incredibly talented and much-admired Lucia Newell. Not only a Twin Cities audience
favorite, she is one of those special vocalists whose talents are just as enthusiastically
praised by the musicians with whom she works. Truly a musician’s singer,
Newell is a total musician in her own right...”
“Strayhorn’s is an essential legacy, and Lucia Newell is a more
than able interpreter of these works. —Arne Fogel, Jazz Vocalist and Radio
Host, Twin Cities Jazz Notes, February 2005
“Backed by Pete Whitman’s all-star sextet Departure Point, singer
Lucia Newell scaled new heights with her 2004 release Steeped
in Strayhorn...” “The essence of Strayhorn, whose collaborations with Duke Ellington are
the stuff of jazz legend, glowed in the album’s fresh arrangements, the
entire band rising to the occasion. Newell infused the Strayhorn nuggets with
her delicious insouciance, uncanny sense of swing, and her command of Brazilian
music’s incredible lightness of being, most spectacularly in the samba-steeped
version of ‘Passion Flower.’“ “Onstage, Newell is a casual presence, cracking jokes, playing to the
audience. But she is also a strong bandleader...Newell is very good, it seems,
at creating the exact context she is seeking at the very moment she desires it...Newell
will take the music deep into those personal places, the cracks in our armor,
where jazz is free to go.”
“With this record, she’s not channeling Strayhorn, she’s
sounding her own depths.” “Since returning to the Twin Cities, Newell has been a staple of the
local jazz scene for two decades and is known for the Brazilian spices she sprinkles
into her sets.” “...Newell sings in her low, burnished alto. And you believe her.” "Lucia Newell's voice is a wonderful instrument with a warm and pure jazz sound
that elegantly dresses up these standards and Brazilian ballads." "What's immediately striking is the warmth and evocativeness of Newell's voice,
especially when she's singing in Portuguese..." "Destaque para a americana Lucia Newell, que brilharia facil em qualquer sala
de concerto internacional." (Translation: "Distinction for Lucia Newell, who would
shine in any international concert hall.") "Lucia Newell is a singer of songs for an audience to know and love." "Newell's voice rises and dips like a falling leaf in a warm breeze. You do
not listen to "Enter You" as much as you are seduced by it." "Lucia Newell's lifelong love affair with the music of Brazil is well documented
on the new CD, Enter You, Enter
Love. So is Newell's easy going command of Great American Songbook
standards." "The predominant mood is soft and seductive, the music steeped in the warmth
and gentleness of the Brazilian bossa nova and samba and the Portuguese language.
Newell is just about perfect for this setting." "Lucia Newell has the warm, melodic voice of a mature sounding Astrud Gilberto." "As reader or singer, Lucia Newell is a magnificent interpreter who communicates
through intonation, phrasing, faultless diction (in two languages) and a husky
contralto... Lucia turns her heart inside out, filling the air with the emptiness
and despair the lyrics demand." "Wintry yet warm, a tinsel-time treat with depth, this is a CD that delivers
... You get great arrangements, bristling swing, powerful solos, timeless carols,
charismatic vocals by Lucia Newell ...Newell sounds like a frozen prairie version
of Shirley Horn on the marvelous and moving ballad In the Bleak Midwinter."
—Courtney Lewis, Minnesota Monthly, July 2004
—Alan Bargebuhr, Cadence Magazine, March 2005
—Phil Hey, drummer and composer, as quoted in Minnesota Monthly,
November 2004
—Pete Whitman, saxophonist, composer, arranger, from Minnesota Monthly,
November 2004
—Bruce Swedien, Recording Industry Icon, Producer/Engineer, June 2006
—Tom Surowicz, Star Tribune, February 2005
—Rick Mason, City Pages, February 2005
—Tim Ghiring, Senior Writer, Minnesota Monthly, November, 2004
—Rob Hubbard, St. Paul Pioneer Press, September 10, 2004
—Tim Ghiring, Senior Writer, Minnesota Monthly, November, 2004
—Ben Sidran
—Kevin Frazzini, Minnesota Monthly
—Roberto Muggiati, Manchete, Brasil
—David Duff, Weekend
—Rob Voedisch, Sun Current
—Tom Surowicz, Twin Cities Reader
—Bob Protzman, St. Paul Pioneer Press
—Jerome Wilson, Cadence
—Andrea Canter, Jazz
Police, September 2006
—Tom Surowicz [on Caviani's Angels
We Haven't Heard], Star Tribune