Marlena Shaw - Marlena Wants to Feel You

Has jazz singer Marlena Shaw gone disco since she cut “Take A Bite?” Oh no, Marlena laughingly exclaims: “This is just another phase of what I can do.” Politely but firmly, she refuses to label what she calls “her stuff,” even though she has recorded five albums for the prestigious Blue Note label and was named top female jazz artist by Record World.

Above all else Marlena Shaw loves to perform before a live audience. Studio work she huffs is “too critical, too sanitary a situation. I like all venues of public performing, but I prefer smaller audiences because I want to feel them.”

Whatever she does Marlena clearly wants to do it well. In comparing classical with contemporary music she says “I would like to think that most of the things I have done (ha, ha, ha!) have been classic.”

And a disco classic might best describe her newest album from Columbia Records, “Take a Bite.” “Suite Seventeen” which takes up all of side one comprises a medley of tunes of which “Love Dancin’” is currently the hottest in the discotheques.

Marlena Shaw has succeeded because her rare combination of relentless energy, raw talent, and sass are simply too compelling to ignore. As the complete title of this superb album so aptly puts it, “Music is a feast…so sit at my table and…TAKE A BITE!”