The Berkshires’ own Vikki True has a brand-new CD out, and it’s about time. Actually, the title is ’bout Time (MorningGlory Moon), and the recording is a straight-ahead jazz vocal trio album featuring True singing a dozen jazz and pop standards accompanied by bassist Richard Downs and pianist Peter Schneider.

The minimalist arrangements highlight the players and the songs themselves. This works to great effect on “Don’t You Feel My Leg,” in which True’s vocals and Downs’s bass vie for the upper hand in mischief. Her experimental version of George Gershwin’s “Summertime” make a tried-and-true standard new again. “Lullaby of Birdland” features Downs on trumpet. ...

With songs like “Green Dolphin Street,” “Prelude to a Kiss” and Abby Lincoln’s “Throw It Away,” this is as much a serious jazz album as a showcase for True’s versatile vocals.

-Seth Rogovoy, The Berkshire Eagle

"She can caress her listeners with torchy ballads and love songs, move them with old time spirituals and spellbind them. It's obvious that she loves what she is doing and her songs are presented with deep inner feelings that calm an audience and gets it's attention"

- Town Squire Magazine, KC, MO

"If you're looking for heat, there's plenty here and it's all generated by Vikki True, a sensational performer"

- The Berkshire Eagle

" It's a TRUE jazz experience, the kind that sends your body into sway, your lips into a smile, and your spirit soaring into heaven. Vikki True is a force of nature, a one woman jazz explosion, who can scat intricate bop vocals or croon a gentle ballad, or shout a mean down to earth blues with the best of them."

– Berkshire Record

" Vikki True is properly bawdy and belts out songs with the verve of a true vaudevillian."

– The Courier Times - New Hope PA

"... and what a presence. This girl has enough presents to put under a hundred Christmas Trees."

– Duluth Herald

"And then there's Vikki True. What a powerhouse this lady is - and can she sing!! Wow-if given the opportunity… she could lift the roof right off the…Theatre."

– WAMC radio Albany, NY

"…when she sizzled the airwaves …there wasn't a rump glued to a chair."

– Berkshire Courier Gt. Barrington, MA

On her 13-track debut studio CD, Vikki True walks us down a narrow alley to a smoky, '50s-style, Manhattan jazz club. Inside, she settles us into a thickly upholstered chair to witness vocal behavior considered
risky by many.
True's vocal style is just gritty enough to leave a mark without causing any pain. At times, she drives her voice as if she were road testing a fine automobile. Just when you think she reached the limits of performance, she squeezes the accelerator yet stays glued to the road. She shifts gears between playful or sensuous singing with little effort.
The disc opens with a scatty version of Ellington's "It Don't Mean a Thing." Next, "Time After Time," settles things down a little. Richard Downs' trumpet virtuosity combines with True's high-octane phrasing for a rendition of "Lullaby of Birdland" that's a real kick. Peter Schneider's piano provides the glue to keep everything together. If it weren't for the medical and social scorn, this CD would go great with a dirty Martini and a lit Lucky.
With an almost apologetic tone, the liner notes point out that this CD was recorded in a single day. No apology necessary, but True's voice does sound a tiny bit tired on a couple of cuts. No matter. It's a fine first effort and one that will whet any listener's appetite for the sequel.

SINGER MAGAZINE
June, 2002
http://www.singermagazine.com/discoveries/discoveries/vikki_true.html

JAZZREVIEW.COM CD Title: 'bout time Year: 2002 Record Label: Morninglory Moon Music
Reviewed by: Bill Falconer

Vikki True's new album, her fifth, will have listeners shaking their heads. Some will shake them rapidly signifying "too far out." And then there's that very slow shake accompanied by the silent mouthing of "Wow!" That's where I'm at.
True has sung professionally since age 15. Her education includes a degree in music and theater, classical voice training and dues-paying time in Kansas City,MO. In addition to jazz, she sings folk, funk and gospel, the latter with her group, Sweet Sisters of Mercy. Pianist Peter Schneider has been with her for 12 years, an advantage for an accompanist who must deal with those vocal twists and turns. Richard Downs, the bassist, hasn't been with her for 12 but plays as though he has. He is versatile, doubling on trumpet here and there and serving as musical director for the session. He also possesses a sense of humor. Downs wrote the liner notes as Fennard Leather and claims to torture the bass. (Well it isn't quite torture, but he does play with it.)
True's voice is rich and supple with lots of range. She can do remarkable things - scatting, vocalese, growls, quotes and complex phrasing that may remind you somewhat of Janet Lawson (with whom she studied), Sheila Jordan or Betty Carter. Sound of surprise, you bet! However, even at her most adventurous and uninhibited, she radiates the sense of being in a musical conversation, with her trio and us, the listeners. And she keeps you listening.
True and the trio swing right from the opener. She is at home with Ellington and equally so with Ricky Lee Jones. She can be humorous and raunchy in the tradition of blues artists, as in "Don't You Feel My Leg." Her melding of "Over the Rainbow" into "Green Dolphin Street" gives new life to that overdone jam session chestnut. The surrealistic intro to "Summertime" is not for the faint-hearted. it does lead in to True's caressing phrasing of the Gershwin song before they take it on and out. Trumpeter Downs and the rhythm section are right with her throughout. Now what is special about this singer is that she will captivate you with this complex and innovative performance and then turn around and do the same with a no-frills treatment of Abbey Lincoln's "Throw it Away." Now that's communication!
If you live anywhere near Cheesecake Charlie's Cabaret in Great Barrington even better or any of Vikki True's other Berkshire haunts, beat a path to her door. "Live" will be even better. Wish I were there.

by: Horace Clarence Boyer, PhD
Professor Emeritus of African American Music and Jazz,
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Author: How Sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel - Elliott & Clark Publishing, 1995

While there is no doubt that Louis Armstrong created that phenomenal roller-coaster activity called jazz singing, he turned the development of the style over to the women singers. And while many of us of late have been bemoaning the fact that those great women singers who developed the style, women like Ella, Sarah, Carmen, and Betty are gigging upstairs now, it is time to take comfort in the fact that there are still a few seasoned women singers providing the stuff that the greats once offered. Take Vikki True. And take her latest CD, 'bout time. One of the most pleasant discoveries of listening to this recording is the fact that True is really an old fashioned bop singer. She treats rhythm like it is her own creation, there is no melody that is too complex for her to scale, and her voice is as liquid as the trumpet sound of Clifford Brown. She announces that right off the bat with Ellington's It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing - and she swings it!
There is no realm of jazz singing that is beyond True: note the scatting on Time After Time, the nice relaxed tempo on Lullaby of Birdland, the genuine Latin feeling of Green Dolphin Street (with the quoting of Over the Rainbow) and her tour de force of Summertime. Her tribute to Sheila Jordan - bass and voice - on Prelude To a Kiss and that swinging groove on On The Street Where You Live announce that Vikki True has a great - and beautiful - voice, she has rhythm, soul, and understanding - and she's a good singer. Check out ' bout time. Now!

AMG EXPERT REVIEW
Dave Nathan

You know you're in for something different when the liner notes are credited to Fennard Leather. In addition to being a jazz singer, Vikki True bills herself as a spiritual healer. This "spirit" is heard in the performances of the classic standards on her album. "Summertime" opens with some highly ghostly music apparently created by the machinations of bass player Richard Downs. Throughout this tune, True engages in a variety of vocal gymnastics, including some significant wordless vocalizing backed by the unearthly bass. Most listeners probably have never heard "Summertime" done this way, as it is pushed, pulled, dragged, and otherwise wrestled through more than seven minutes of extemporization by True and crew. That True has studied with modern jazz singer Janet Lawson is quite apparent by her mode of delivery of such tunes as "Shall We Dance," filled with odd phrasing and time signatures by both True and pianist Peter Schneider. Never wanting for risks and surprises, True superimposes a chorus from "Over the Rainbow" right smack in the middle of "Green Dolphin Street," showing an adroit knack for making sure that her audience is still listening. True apparently has also listened to Betty Carter, as she engages in the complex renditions she has chosen for the selections on the play list. In addition to his prowess on the bass, Downs is also proficient on the trumpet, which he takes out on several tracks such as on "Lullaby of Birdland," which is done comparatively straightforward. This album requires a strong commitment from the listener. He/she must be willing to keep ears and mind open and be willing to consider interpretations of familiar material somewhat off the beaten track. Once this resolution is made, the aural rewards will be significant. Recommended for the bold and committed jazz fan. - Dave Nathan

David Nathan is author of The Soulful Divas and a book on Curtis Mayfield as well as Lionel Ritchie. He has written for Blues and Soul Magazine and was the first recipient of the Journalist's Award from The International Association of African-American Music. This review appears on www.allmusic.com.

Few of our readers are likely to know Vikki True and probably even fewer, Cheesecake Charlie's, a restaurant on Main Street in Great Barrington, MA one of the main resort towns in the Southern Berkshires where she will be performing all summer in a cabaret series. But the opening of a new cabaret room is always cause for celebration and those who venture into Western Massachusetts for their holidays can add this venues to other places of entertainment offered in the area.
It was clear to all who witnessed True's tribute to George Gershwin or the following weekend's homage to Duke Ellington, that this lady loves her music and offers due respect to their lyrics. One could imagine Gershwin listening to these 21st century renditions and nodding in approval. Vikki's Gershwin opener, a bouncing "I Got Rhythm", could have been written for her. With her grounding in jazz almost always evident, True presented a lyrical "Love Walked In", a nostalgic "Someone To Watch Over Me", and an "I've Got A Crush On You" that brought to mind the straightforward vocal styling of Wesla Whitfield.
For the Ellington show , the Duke's extraordinary library of vocal compositions provided Vikki a jazz love fest. Aside from her rich voice, Vikki's scat singing was effective and inventive, adding squeals, squeaks, chirps, trills and growls. Amazingly, it worked like a charm.
The schedule through August includes these two shows plus others which Vikki headlines. There's a Cole Porter special, a "Gospel Hour", "The Ladies of Jazz" and "Red, White, and True." If you've had enough of Tanglewood, or classical music isn't your thing, take one night for an ingratiating evening of out of town cabaret at Cheesecake Charlie's.

Reviewed by Jerome Wilson

VIKKI TRUE,
'BOUT TIME,
MORNINGLORY MOON 224
Swing (it) Brother Swing - It Don't Mean A Thing/ Time After Time(duo) / Don't You Feel My Leg / Lullaby Of Birdland / Green Dolphin Street / Shall We Dance / summertime / Our Love Is Here To Stay / Danny's All Star Joint / Prelude To A Kiss / Throw It Away / On The Street where You Live / Time After Time (trio) 59.04

True, vcl, shakers, rainstick, bells, claves;
Peter Schneider, p;
Richard Downs, b, tpt, claves. Louisville, Ky

This little known singer proves to have abilities equal to, if not better than, the current big names in the field.
Vikki True deals with familiar songs. She only has two accompanists, Peter Schneider n piano and Richard Downs on bass and overdubbed trumpet. That means she's got a lot of room to take chances. On some tracks she bobs and weaves over the melody like Betty Carter, sometimes creating an entirely new song as on "Shall We Dance." Other tracks, like "Time After Time" and Our Love is Here To Stay." Are duets with Downs' bass that turn into really frisky duels. The old blues tune " Don't Feel My Leg" is frisky in another way with True's sighs getting X-rated by the end. "Summertime" adds some quiet percussion for an eerie flavor, and on "Street where You Live" True eschews the tricks and just belts out the song showing the impressive power of her voice. She is a fun singer who's not afraid to take chances, the kind of vocalist we could use a lot more of.