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Rating: Rachelle Ferrell is one of the best modern jazz singers of the last 20 years; thanks to her excellent vocal skills and a great interpretative vein, the American singer has often been acclaimed by critics and fans as the quintessential female voice. With her warm timbre, the nuances she can create, and her incredible vocal range, she transmits great emotions to her listeners.
The first time you listen to Ferrell, it's like a bolt from the blue; you're instantly struck, you fall in love with her voice, and it's hard to live without it, realizing you've encountered an uncommon talent and a completely personal style that's hard to find in other performers and authors of this genre today. Once you've listened to and known the singer, you become eager to "explore her more," and knowing her studio recordings could easily become one of our "musical" desires—a desire destined to end in semi-disappointment once you realize that in so many years of her career, the studio albums released by Ferrell are very few, only three, with the last one, in my opinion, the best, this "Individuality" from the year 2000.
From 1992, the year of release of the self-titled "Rachelle Ferrell," to 2000, eight years have passed. I remember reading an article where the interviewed singer stated that those years were a period for her in which she had to fight for her creative freedom; a presumably true statement, justifiable by the fact that in the music industry, an artist's creativity is often sacrificed to the production's desire, which focuses on business and fears that its investment will not bring the expected economic returns. Sometimes musicians, for their artistic assertion, have to battle even with producers who are always ready to distort and especially "synthesize" their work to make it more immediate and accessible to the general public.
Well, if in those years the American singer truly fought (assuming my interpretation is correct), I would say the fight was successful since "Individuality" is an amazing album from every point of view; the blend of jazz, funk, and soul works brilliantly to highlight the vocalist's skills, the compositions are either pleasant or astounding. The funk "Sista" is simply sublime, the romantic "I forgive you," where the splendid melody is wonderfully interpreted by Ferrell and accompanied by a band of great respect (with George Duke on keyboards), will leave you breathless; it's probably the best track on the album. Also noteworthy are the funk songs "I gotta go" and "Why you wanna mess it all up?", where Ferrell "goes crazy" at the end, offering us irresistibly "crazy" vocal evolutions. You might also be struck by the two beautiful duets with a male voice; the first, "Gaia," is a simple and intense track, but especially the very romantic "Reflections of my heart" (where Duke performs a quadruple play, playing keyboards, bass, drums, and acoustic guitar), accompanied by splendid guitar phrase-arpeggios. Another stunning track, where the vocal interpretation reaches heights unattainable by "humans," is "I can explain." The song is initially introduced only by the piano, masterfully played by Ferrell. After the first verse, drums, bass, and guitar join in; together with "I forgive you," it's the best vocal performance on the album.
I only add that such an artist and such a voice, too often left in the shadows, deserves to be heard at least once by those who love good music.
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