No Depression – The Journal of Roots Music, Sept 17, 2016
Jazz vocalist Laura Crema is not only a great singer but also an evocative musician. Her new album Blue Shadows on the Trail showcases both her stunning voice and ingenuity. Crema has re-imagined some of the finest classics while making them uniquely hers at the same time, recreating them for a new generation of folk, jazz, and country lovers. This album is a feast with rich flavors that will satisfy your musical palette.
Delightful and charming, “Sugar Moon” is fitting to be placed as the first track in the album. It gives listeners a taste of what to expect—Crema’s heavenly voice, a fusion of genres, and a creative re-imagining of a classic. Crema offers a slow jazz, folk country rendition of a K.D. Lang song. This stripped-down version of the song will make listeners savor its beautiful lyrics all the more. The piano and guitar solos are lovely, complementing Crema’s blissful voice. It’s like a sweet lullaby you can slow dance to under the moonlit sky.
Famously sung by Nina Simone, the folk and jazz version of “Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair” is intense and hauntingly beautiful. Crema’s enchanting voice creates a more passionate yet endearing version of the song. The violin and guitar accompaniment making the song enthralling and enigmatic at the same time. Crema’s rendition of this classic is like a slow unveiling of an elusive loved one. Her voice effortlessly shifts from mysterious to magical.
Many singers have covered Blind Willie Johnson’s “Motherless Children” like Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and Rosanne Cash. Crema’s velvety voice is what differentiates her version from the rest. Her American folk and Western swing fusion make this song slightly upbeat with a touch of country music, adding more flavor to it. Crema accomplishes something incredible in this track. She balances the sense of urgency with clarity and vulnerability, allowing the message of this song to resonate louder than ever before. There is strength in her ethereal voice, making this rendition more provocative than it already is.
Crema’s new album is a collection of blended genres that gives birth to revitalized originals. Her captivating voice and independent vision allows her to transcend the limitations of covers and produce re-imagined songs that have a life of their own.
BC MUSICIAN MAGAZINE -Blue Shadows on the Trail Review
There was a time when people danced and jazz and country music were not hostile to each other. The western swing dance music of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys was built on the same frame established earlier by Kansas City Territory bands like Walter Page’s Blue Devils. Laura Crema’s five earlier CDs are all loosely rooted in the jazz standard songbook, with some adventurous side excursions. But on this CD the jazz singer takes on American roots and country music and the results are disturbingly good. She yodels like she was born in a saddle.
Thirteen tracks, one original and twelve covers ranging from a traditional folk ballad – Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair, to interpretations of Blind Willie Johnson and Waylon Jennings. The title track was written for the Disney movie, Melody Time, and was released by Roy Rogers and The Sons of the Pioneers in 1947.
Crema has a way of slightly understating a lyric; she has such great internal resilience that she shrugs off loss and heartbreak, but she also forces you to confront the small inflections in the lyrics that can shift their meaning and suddenly the song is new.
She is backed by a six piece band including arranger Scott Smith on multiple stringed instruments, Paul Rushka on bass, Nino Di Pasquale on drums, Jay Buether on electric guitar, Darryl Havers on keyboards and accordion, and Mike Sanyshyn on fiddle.
At this point she doesn’t have a tour planned to support the album but she will be playing Frankie’s Jazz Club in Vancouver with the Blue Shadows Band on Sunday, April 23.
Reviewed by R. Doull
The WHOLE NOTE, Toronto Ontario. April 2014 Edition. By Stuart Broomer
Guitarist Bill Coon’s special contribution to Canadian Jazz singing is immediately apparent on Laura Crema’s Fotografia (lauracrema.com), as the Vancouver singer opens her fourth CD with just Coon’s guitar momentarily embracing her voice. That initial lack of adornment is emblematic of Crema’s work: she favours substance over decoration, eschewing both affection and surface perfection in favour of direct, emotional renderings of her disparate and imaginative material, including Ellington’s Azure, a duet with Coon; John Lennon’s beautiful boy, a vocal duet with bassists Adam Thomas; a compelling Wild is the Wind with pianist Sharon Minemoto; three songs by Antonio Carlos Jobim; and two originals by Crema and Mimemoto. Somehow Crema ties them together, along with a concluding version of Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson’s Lost in the Stars that leaves the best possible impression, it’s dream like ambience shot through with emotional grit.
SCENE MAGAZINE, London, Ontario April 2014. By John Sharpe
Vancouver based vocalist Laura Crema with suble support from guitarist Bill Coon, kicks off her latest CD with the lovely lush original, “Seraphina”, a love song to her daughter that she co-wrote with Sharon Minemoto. It’s just one of 11 tracks on an album loaded with classic jazz tunes, pop songs, bossa nova beats and two originals that showcase Crema’s warm vocals and sensitivity to lyrics. Produced by bandleader/trumpet player Brad Turner, Fotografia benefits from empathetic support by the aforementioned Bill Coon on Kurt Weil’s “Lost in the Stars” and Duke Ellington’s “Azure” along with bassists Paul Rushka and Adam Thomas, pianists Dave Restivo and Sharon Minemoto and drummers Joe Poole and Andrew Miller at various points through the album. A classy appropriately understated affair from a singer who deserves wider recognition.
-John Sharpe.
Performance B+ / Production B+ / Indie
DOWNBEAT MAGAZINE – SPRING IS HERE by James Hale
The breakthrough success of Norah Jones and Diana Krall continues to spawn photogenic femaie vocalists, and the best of them can usually be spotted by the company they keep. Standout instrumentalists like trumpeter Brad Turner or drummer Matt Wilson can help push a singer into a category apart.
Vancouver’s Laura Crema has an ageless quality to her dry, dark voice-as if it’s an instrument that has never been tuned to rock or contemporary pop. Fittingly, aside from one original-co-written with pianist George McFetridge-the most recent of the dozen compositions on “Spring is Here” is Paul McCartney’s 40-year-old “Blackbird.” The Beatles standard is also one of the only tunes here to break the languid mood set by Billy Strayhorn’s “A Flower is a Lovesome Thing.”
Producer Turner keeps the accompaniment simple, allowing Crema’s voice to stand out starkly against Bill Coon’s guitar on Bruno Martino’s “Estate,” or contrasting its monochromatic nature against his own leaping and cascading trumpet on Cole Porter’s “So In Love.” When Crema does extend her voice-most notably on the title piece-she displays a well-defined, narrow vibrato, but doesn’t lose the husky sensuality which is her most defining quality. – James Hale
The Vancouver Province – SPRING IS HERE Review
Vancouver jazz vocalist Laura Crema and trumpeter/producer Brad Turner make for a powerful combination. Hers is a wonderfully deep, expressive voice and Turner has surrounded her with some great players and sounds. This is quite the inspired treat. – J.P.M.
CBC Radio, Paul Grant
All great jazz singers have at least three qualities in common. The first is that unique timbre that sets their voice apart. The second is the material they choose to sing. And the third is the fresh ideas and insights they bring to those songs. Laura Crema has all three in spades. Her third CD, Spring Is Here, includes music by Billy Strayhorn, Johnny Mercer, Lennon & McCartney and Crema herself. She works with some of the best musicians around, including pianist George McFetridge, guitarist Bill Coon, bassist Paul Rushka and drummers Paul Townsend and Nino DiPasquale.
Edmonton Journal – Vancouver jazz vocalist gets a head start on Spring by Roger Levesque, Sat March 08, 2008
It may be a little early to say so, but spring is on the way and Vancouver jazz vocalist Laura Crema is ready to sing about it. Crema’s latest album, Spring Is Here, pulls together a dozen tunes that touch on nature and the seasons including the famous Rodgers & Hart title track, numbers such as Autumn Serenade, Summer Night, Blackbird, Skylark and New Day, a song she co-wrote with pianist George McFetridge. Lazy Afternoon and Estate are other highlights of the alternately uplifting and atmospheric album, the most impressive offering yet from this accomplished West Coast singer. Most of them are well-worn items in the standards repertoire but she manages to instill her own air of freshness into the material. “For me, the album brings together themes of hope and longing, and recognizing the beauty in the natural world. I was actually pregnant at the time we did the record although I didn’t know it at the time, so maybe that had something to do with it.”
While taking care of a child has put new demands on her career, she allows that there’s a positive angle too, since motherhood “opens your heart” in a new way, and a good singer has to be able to identify with the emotion in a song. Noting that love songs tend to be a staple of the jazz singer’s repertoire, she adds that she was looking to sing about “a greater, more universal sense of love” on this album. Either way, it works, with tunes that really create a small world of their own for the listener to briefly inhabit. It’s been working for Crema too. The album has won notices in places like the New York weekly Village Voice, and will be reviewed in the next edition of the American jazz magazine Downbeat, suggesting that the singer could be on her way to greater international recognition.
Crema will have her backing from the album — pianist George McFetridge, guitarist Bill Coon, and bassist Paul Rushka — when she performs tonight at the Yardbird Suite. Tickets are $14 for members, $18 for guests. The show starts at 9.
Earshot Online
Although fairly young, Laura Crema has been well known on the west coast jazz scene for some time. I first heard her on the disc Divas for Life Live at the Vogue! She held her own while singing with the likes of Karin Plato, Dee Daniels and Kate Hammett-Vaughan. I, therefore, had high expectations for this CD. I was not disappointed. She doesn’t have the all-star big band to back her here, but she has chosen a group of talented musicians. She thankfully hasn’t taken a standard take on every song and has had the help of two jazz veterans. Producer/mixer Brad Turner seems to have the ability to get a great sound out of the artists he works with. He also provided some beautiful trumpet/flugelhorn accompaniment on some cuts. On my favorite track, Cole Porter’s “So In Love,” Turner’s intro is short, but vital to the song and a couple of longer solos later in the same track punctuates the beautiful rhythms coming from Paul Rushka’s bass and Nino DiPasqual’s drums. Bill Coon’s guitar anchors the whole song and also compliment’s Crema’s voice on “Summer Nights”, which is at a quicker tempo. Then, there’s George McFetridge. A young vocalist probably couldn’t get a better pianist/arranger than George McFetridge to help with such a project. McFetridge, who is said to have composed over 500 tunes, is credited with piano/arrangements on four tracks, but his influence can heard throughout the album. Did I mention it was Laura Crema’s CD? It is. There are plenty of ballads on Spring is Here and a more vulnerable voice could not get away with such deliberate, slow phrasing. In Rodgers & Hart’s “Spring is Here”, she does just that and holds the notes for just the right amount of time and Turner excels on his horn. She shows she’s not afraid to take chances when she sings beautifully in Italian, on “Estate”, with only Coon’s guitar as backing and she climbs the slippery slope of using a deeper, bassy tone for the Beatle’s “Blackbird.” It works. But this album has more than slow phrasing. Crema shows that she can speed it up as well on the bossa sounding “New Day”, the track she co-wrote with McFetridge. Overall the feel of Spring is Here is somewhat dark and harkens back to dimly lit, smoky lounges in those black and white detective films from the 40’s or 50’s and many of the tracks could be considered as candidates for a film noir soundtrack. There has never been a shortage of vocal mainstream jazz albums being released at any given time. To have yours stand out is not any easy task, but Laura Crema has managed to do this with her second album Spring is Here.
By Jim Dupuis, Dec 21, 2007
Vue Magazine, Edmonton Alberta
It’s hard to imagine a Vancouverite greeting spring with the same overzealous jubilance as an Edmontonian-or anyone else, for that matter-who has endured weeks of -40 degree weather. Jazz vocalist and Vancouver native Laura Crema named her latest album after the season, but, she explains, Spring is Here was chosen more for its metaphorical meaning.
Having a child might have had something to do with it, she says from her home while her two-year-old daughter is momentarily occupied by the TV. [The title] came from the song on the album, but I guess it works on different levels.
The record, which was released in October last year, is like a snapshot for Crema. When she started recording it a few years ago she was pregnant and, as a result, had to put the project on hold for a while after her daughter was born.
It’s quite interesting because it takes [me] back to that time and place, musically and emotionally, she explains. It was a different time. [I] was working with different people.
George McFetridge, her piano player, for example, has since moved to Vancouver Island. The original line-up of musicians who recorded the album, however, will regroup for an upcoming tour of Alberta. Crema promises audiences are in for a musical treat with guitarist Bill Coon, bassist Paul Rushka and drummer Paul Townsend.
These guys I play with are really great musicians, she gushes. It’s a joy to play with them.
After hearing a sampling of Crema’s vocals, one can assume that the feeling is probably reciprocated. Her rich, smoky voice takes centre stage on Spring is Here, with songs as varied as the Beatles’s Blackbird and Brighetti and Martino’s standard, Estate.
Songs, they choose you in a way, too,she says, attributing her song choice, to a degree, to fate. It’s a combination of the lyric and the melody and the chords and just the complete song. In that moment in your life or your experience in your life [you] are affected by it.
Crema brings a varied artistic background to her music. She graduated from Simon Fraser University with a degree in fine arts for performing arts and economics. Since then she’s been a dancer, choreographer and interdisciplinary performer. It wasn’t until later in her career that she decided to dabble in jazz singing.
She says she loved singers like Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughn as a child and used to tap dance to them.
Those songs are somehow connected to me, she says. Years ago, when I was older [than when I first heard them], I really fell in love with all those wonderful vocalists who sang those songs and brought so much to them. Essentially, Crema’s goal is to echo that talent of taking a song and making it your own. (With jazz] people know the songs, so hopefully you bring something new to it, you affect them in a different way, she says. The beauty about the arts is connecting to people on a bigger level. By Alyssa Noel
flutenotes, Tim Keenliside – ALMOST BLUE
On the strength of this release, Vancouver singer Laura Crema is poised to take centre- stage on the international jazz scene. Possessed of a powerful voice with great depth and resonance, she brings a warm, strongly emotive approach to classic torch songs like Stormy Weather or All of You. The spacious accompaniment (piano, with double-bass, and occasionally drums) is the perfect complement to these fresh interpretations.
Edmonton Journal, Roger Levesque
Crema’s Almost Blue belies her jazz experience
It’s interesting what people’s business cards say about them.
Under the name on Laura Crema’s stylist card it says simply “performing artist”-a reflection of her multi-disciplinary training that included considerable involvement in dance, choreography and music. It also leaves out the fact that her double-major at Simon Fraser University took in economics, which certainly can’t hurt when it comes to the business side of a career in the arts.
As it turns out, it’s only in the past few years that the Vancouver vocalist has chosen to focus on singing jazz. From the way she manipulates standards and mostly ballads on the 2003 album Almost Blue(Maximum Jazz), you would guess it had been much longer.
Crema hastens to note that she recorded the title Elvis Costello tune after hearing Chet Baker sing it, before anyone knew Costello’s new wife Diano Krall would put it out. Crema is at least as convincing as Krall on the love ballad and one could argue her broader range brings greater depths to the material. Picking and interpreting great songs is never easy.
“Alot of times you hear something or feel attracted to a song and it just clicks,” Crema explains. “It’s a mysterious process when you connect to song. Musician friends have brought me songs and arrangements too. Hopefully you can find your own bit of truth in the lyrics and music.”
You can hear Crema in concert Saturday at the Yardbird Suite. Ex-Edmonton pianist George Mcfetridge (and a rhythm section) will be with her and they will also feature a few of his tunes.
While Crema’s family wasn’t especially musical, they did listen to a variety of records and she recalls “getting hooked” on older singers, songs and the stories behind them in her teens. Apart from dance training, she got a few classical vocal lessons early on, but the singer credits workshops at the Banff Centre with Sheila Jordan and Jay Clayton as her biggest inspiration.
“It was a really rich experience working with both of them because they have such a strong connection with the music, and so many stories behind it. You don’t want to copy them but hopefully you take some essence or an approach or something you learned and carry it forward.”
Crema first recorded with a Vancouver pop band, The Dreaming, in 1999, and then did a self-titled, full-length demo CD of her jazz singing in 2000, so Almost Blue is her first real solo disc for release and it’s a strong one.
The Album features Edmonton bassist Mike Lent; ex-Edmonton drummer Owen Howard; several pianist, Dave Restivo and Kenny Werner among them; bassist Kodi Hutchinson and some tasty harmonica solos from William Galison. At the Banff Centre, Crema was able to make use of the talents on hand when she recorded in the digital studios there.
The Vancouver Sun, Marke Andrews – ALMOST BLUE
Crema makes low notes glow like coals
Vocalist Laura Crema opens her debut disc, recorded in Banff, Alta., with the bittersweet Elvis Costello title track, a ballad on which Crema communicates the emotional depth of the lyric, ably assisted by pianist David Restivo and bassist Kodi Hutchinson. Crema has a warm, resonant voice: on Someone in Love, she bathes the sustained notes with vibrato, and begining Cole Porter’s All of You with just Hutchinson’s bass for accompaniment, Crema makes the low notes glow like coals. The great Kenny Werner plays piano on a bluesy Stormy Weather, perfectly complementing the singer’s lines.
Planet Jazz, George Evans – ALMOST BLUE
Fortuitously recorded during sessions at Banff. Laura Crema’s jazz vocal debut shows her to have a lush, unique instrument with an affinity for ballads, such as the CD’s stunning title track. Multidisciplinary Crema has solid dance credentials, while musically she also fronts the indie-rock band The Dreaming.
See Magazine, Edmonton Alberta
Crema the crop
As any musician will tell you, it rarely makes economic sense to pursue music for a living. You’d think that someone with a degree in economics would realize that music is an iffy business at best. “Maybe,” says Laura Crema on the phone from her home in Vancouver, “but I think, especially in the arts, you have to follow your heart…I fell in love with jazz and those incredible voices. I like the challenge of economic theory, but dance and music-I love those”.
Crema graduated Simon Fraser University with a degree in Fine and Performing Arts and Economics. An accompliced dance and choreographer, she brought a love of jazz with her to the Banff Centre where she had the opportunity to work with such veteran performers and jazz educators as Sheila Jordan and Jay Clayton.
“What an amazing, inspirational, and affirming experience that was. It was such a treat to work with people with such a connection to the music,” enthuses Crema about her experience with Jordan and Clayton. “Sheila Jordan has a love and respect for jazz and the creators of the music and feels that it is her responsibility to pass that along. She helped me to explore the whole aspect of storytelling through music and the techniques of breathing and phrasing. Her approach was so gentle and understanding, which is a good thing when you’re dealing with younger artists. The other thing she had me focus on is the lower register of my voice.”
And that is exactly where Crema shines. Her debut recording Almost Blue, focuses on ballads that showcase her lower register and the rich tonal texture she possesses. The album was recorded at the Banff Centre with the help of pianist David Restivo and bassist Kodi Hutchinson. “I spent about a day and a half in the studio in Banff,” Crema says. “We spent about 12 hours recording the basic tracks…Kenny Werner played piano on Stormy Weather. Later, we added a few tracks with some Vancouver musicians, including Miles Black.”
Covering the range from Cole Porter to Elvis Costello, Crema brings a level of confidence and emotion into these classic songs that belies her age. “I’ve been performing for seven years, and the scene here in the lower mainland is pretty good. You can gig here and there at the hotels and stuff but, like most musicians, I supplement my income with other things: I teach a bit, have the occasional day job, that sort of thing.”
For her Edmonton debut, Crema will be working with pianist George McFetridge, bassist John Grey and Tyler Hornby on drums.
– Cam Hayden
Calgary Herald – Crema at the Taproom
Rising Vancouver jazz vocalist Laura Crema performs tonight at Brew Bros. Taproom.
The young singer known for an innovative yet strongly emotional approach to mainstream jazz ranging from the ’20s to the ’90’s, was hailed for her warm resonant interpretations of such standards as I Remember You and Stormy Weather on her debut CD, Almost Blue, released in 2003.
All About Jazz, by Gregory J. Robb – ALMOST BLUE
Laura Crema uses Almost Blue to revive great standards in very refreshing form, turning back generations fo time to pay the highest form of respect to her predecessors. Although Crema included two tracks recorded live, one wonders how different this collection would feel to the listener had the band just recorded this whole album as a live set. This album is a nightclub gig without the smoke
Laura Crema learned well under the guidance of legendary jazz vocalists Sheila Jordan and Jay Clayton at Banff, Alberta (Canada). She knows when to hold the note like a longing momory and when to let it go like a painful betrayal. Crema is a true artist, having distinguished herself in music, dance and choreography across Canada. A wider understanding of arts has helped Crema with this part of her musical art. We can feel it in the music.
“There’s a part of me that’s always true”
“I Remember You” provides the only jarring enery surge of this record. Its up tempo features a club-tight solo by pianist Miles Black that is offset by his lovely placement of chords. The difficulty with this situation has always been that of deciding where to place one up-tempo tune in a collection of ballads. Perhaps Crema should have chosen a different song for this spot in the line-up.
“Young and Foolish” draws back the blues in a rendition that would please Jimmy Van Heusen. Pianist David Restivo is comfortable lazy brilliance of a Sunday afternoon thought. Crema croons ina truth too seldom told these days. “I wish that we were young and foolist again.”
This incarnation of “Stormy Weather” is performed over 25 years after Harold Arlen, one of the song’s authors, left us. Kenny Werner makes a great cameo of flourishing piano that combines to beat slightly with
William Gallison’s harmonica wanderings.
“Just can’t get my poor self together. I’m weary all the time.”
Kodi Hutchinson’s bass turns “All of You” into a funky reinventions of Cole Porter’s classic. Crema packages her coal in the classicism that underlies this music and that brings honesty to this recording.
“From this Moment On” sizzles in the spirit of Cole Porter. Laura Crema can cook and tease, but this song provides her the opportunity to extend into straight jazz voice (without words). Pianist Randy Halberstat impresses with selection and skill in his only appearance on this record.
“It’s only human for anyone ot want to be in love. But who wants to be in love in Vain?”
“The Meaning of the Blues” extends the overwhelming blues feel of this record to almost six minutes – the longest song of this collection. The lyric may expound on the colour blue, but the music defines what blue feels like.
“Almost Blue” is not almost blue; it is blues in its most jazzy, traditional form. May Laura Crema hold on to the integrity of the traditions she explored in her debut album.
Ipirotikos Agon, Vangelis Aragiannis – ALMOST BLUE
(translated from Greek)
The debut of Laura Crema from Vancouver Canada is a collection of well-known standards. The CD was named after an Elvis Costello composition, the most recent song of the album and the sole that is not derived from the classic jazz songbook. Crema’s warm, deep and vivid voice, her wonderful vibrato and the ease of her interpretation in these songs that have been treated sublimely by the great jazz performers are not common place for a newcomer. But Crema studied with Sheila Jordan, has received numerous awards and has considerable experience in front of an audience, an experience profound at the two live tracks that this album includes. Almost Blue releases an enjoyable sense of melancholy and gives the impression that the artist will cross her country’s borders soon. The outstanding sound of William Galison’s harmonica and the contribution of the famous pianist Kenny Werner in one track are worth mentioning too.
The Vancouver Courier, Chris Wong in sync
Dive Makes Great Strides
A worthwhile event takes place Feb. 3 at the Vogue Theatre: Divas for Life, a benefit concert for Friends for Life. The concert features six of our citys female singers who perform jazz: Dee Daniels, Kate Hammmett-Vaughan, Karin Plato,Stevie Vallace, Tammy Weiss and Laura Crema. Performers like Daniels, Hammett-Vaughan and Plato are well established in our jazz scene but others such as Crema aren’t as widely known.I first heard Crema sing in the 1998 at the Gate, the former club and Granville near Davie. A tune she did that night was the timeless standardWhat a Difference a Day Makes. When I caught her at the Latin Quarter the other week, that same song was part of her set. What a difference four years makes. While I was impressed with her confidence and range at the Gate, hearing her at the Latin Quarter confirmed Crema has made great strides. That confidence has grown, along with her ablility to subtly reharmonize melodies.
The Burnaby-born Crema has a degree in economics and fine arts from Simon Fraser University. Crema abandoned a Masters degree in economics when she realized her calling was in the performing arts. Crema has since worked as a dancer and choreographer with Karen Jamieson and others. As a singer, she maintained a steady gig at the Kino Cafe for about three years. Her Wednesday night Latin Quarter gig has been going for a year and a half.Studying at the Banff Centre for the Arts with vocal jazz legend Sheila Jordan and Jay Clayton, and at Vancouver Community College, has made a difference. So has her realistic attitude about the long process of developling as an artist. “Its just a process of revealing itself”, says the vocalist. In other words, she is taking an intuitive approach to jazz singing, which is increasingly engaging audiences.
Satellite – Grandview’s Community News and Calendar
This is the third album from the Vancouverite and SFU grad. Crema brings her own distinctive styling to some great jazz standards, including songs by Gershwin and Porter. Only two of the tracks are live, but they all reproduce the live set of a smoky nightclub. On the title track (by Elvis Costello), Crema’s vocals are deeply rich, provocative and resonant, illustrating why she is considered a rising star in the Canadian jazz scene. You can catch her live every Wednesday at 8:30pm at the Latin Quarter.
Vancouver Lifestyles Magazine, Jim Gordon
The Up and Comer
Laura Crema brings her own interpretation to the classics, and her extensive vocal range only enhances the songs of Gershwin, Porter, and Ellington. Crema is also an accompliced dancer and member of the Modern Dance and Theatre Community, and has choreographed shows at Dancing on the Edge and Women in View Festivals. When you hear Crema sing, you find that she truly has something for everyone – with a repertoire that includes music from the 20s, 30s, right up to the 90s. And the way she handles such songs as Lovermanand Love For Saleguarantee this singers future in the world of jazz.
Peace Arch News, Alexander Brown
It’s the Sound of Swinging Jazz
Laura Crema’s great vocal range and exhuberant delivery bears the influence of many of the immortal jazz divas. But she establishes her own dynamic personality on such classic standards asCherokeeComes LoveDeed I Do Speak LowLove For SaleandWillow Weep For Me
Crema who performs at Vancouvers Blue Lizard Lounge, and the du Maurier Jazz Festival, brings her vocal stylings and swing jazz group to the Washington Avenue Grill tommorrow night…
The Georgia Straight, Steve Newton – THE DREAMING
A Personal Soundtrack – Independent
Judging by this ambitious debut CD, the Dreaming has a good shot at the title of most-promising prog-rock/fusion combo in Vancouver. Comprised of singer Laura Crema, drummer Matt Heximer, bassist Jesse Lyon, and a superior guitarist known only as “The Kid”, the new group offers 13 tracks featuring sultry vocals and jazzy adventurous six-string stylings. A sprawling, one-hour disc, A Personal Soundtrack was smartly produced by Nathan Lorch and recorded and mixed by Roger Swan at City Studios.
CBC radio network, Sue Braiden – THE DREAMING
Laura Crema’s sultry vocals pull you deep into the dark, smokey room of some 40’s speakeasy where torch songs spoke volumes from the heart. Part of a groove-based four piece “The Dreaming”, this diva and her sublime Vancouver compatriots are a tale of all things good and Canadian. If you’re trying to pin a genre on this band, leave your stereotypes at the door. Unadulterated musical silk, and not to be missed.