Album Review: Storm Large

Le Bonheur (Heinz)

By Jay Horton

[WHITE JAZZ] Less than a decade removed from titillating dowagers at Union Station's piano bar, Storm Large has so successfully bum-rushed the global celebrity apparatus that her side projects threaten to overshadow the estimable pipes and provocateur instincts first sparking her ascent. Finally, after recruiting an all-star retinue of guests for a jaunt through jazz standards and rock-era classics alongside a pair of originals, La Large returns in full-throated majesty with Le Bonheur. Storm's sizable vocal range encompasses a lived-in earthiness that grounds the instrumental backdrops before a cultivated precision ever turns antiseptic. Newer tunes sometimes veer toward karaoke theatrics, but the playful phrasing that enlivens "The Lady Is a Tramp" and the pop-metal dynamics propelling "I've Got You Under My Skin" toward power-ballad territory impose a distinctly engrossing worldview upon chestnuts seemingly immune to idiosyncratic readings yet unmistakably branded Storm Large. 

SEE IT: Storm Large plays Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., on Monday, Sept. 8. 7:30 pm. Sold out. Under 21 permitted with legal guardian.

WWeek 2015

Willamette Week’s reporting has concrete impacts that change laws, force action from civic leaders, and drive compromised politicians from public office. Support WW's journalism today.