Day in the Life of Karen Oberlin

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Karen Oberlin brought in a septet to Iridium to celebrate Doris Day’s 85^th birthday. She was paying tribute to the jazz side of Day, and it was a pleasure to attend this event. Karen is a gifted performer, and she brought together a group of pros.

Her backup band included: Tedd Firth, musical director and pianist; Tom Hubbard on bass and Peter Grant, drums. The horn section consisted of: Waldron Hicks, trumpet; Mike Hashim, tenor sax; Cliff Lyons, alto sax and Wayne Goodman, trombone. Julian Fleisher was Karen’s special guest for a vocal duet.

On “Secret Love” (the title tune of Oberlin’s CD), Karen started out surprisingly soft as the band stayed in the background. Using the tried but true technique of building up in dynamics as one goes along, Karen’s singing style was very effective. Her phrasing was natural and relaxed. Mike Hashim took a solo on tenor, and his improvisational style worked very well against the horn lines.

“Close Your Eyes” was slower and more sensual. Karen has good stage presence, and also has a good rapport with pianist Firth. I enjoyed his bluesy solo. The next tune, “We’ll Be Together Again,” was a smooth ballad, done in a 6/8 feel. Here, Karen combined speaking in combination with singing the phrases, and got a nice mix between her chest and head voice.

Despite the fact that Karen threw in some crowd pleasers like “Que Sera, Sera” and “Sentimental Journey,” my favorite part of her set was from one of Doris Day’s films, Romance on the High Seas, featuring the songs “It’s Magic” and “Put ‘Em in a Box, Tie ‘Em with a Ribbon.” The first tune, “It’s Magic,” was sung with a bright latin flavor, and had a deceptive ending. The latter tune had a true big-band sound, and Karen really belted it out!

Karen brought up singer Julian Fleisher to join her in a duet on “I’d Rather Be with You.” Originally written by Alfred and Comstock, Oberlin added her own lyrics to topically update the song. The basic idea was, they used movie stars’ names in a cute way to prove their love for each other. This elicited a big round of applause, and was a lot of fun.

Iridium features big bands on Tuesday nights, and usually has CD release parties on Wednesdays. It’s a great idea to have these special nights midweek, in addition to their regular jazz programming. Karen Oberlin was a delight for Big Band Tuesday!