Isabel Rose

Isabel Rose already has a thriving career--well actually, a couple. In the last decade she wrote and starred in Anything But Love and also signed a deal with Doubleday to write a novel.

But now she is releasing her debut album. Swingin’ from the Hip is a cabaret album filled with new renditions of both standards and other popular songs.

The songs get a jazzy, swing makeover. It works better on some songs than others. "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me" is a rendition that is just as welcome as the original version.

The most interesting of her remakes is of Pat Benatar’s "Hit Me With Your Best Shot." It’s a completely new take on the song and one that is both surprising and fun to listen to. Not receiving as good a treatment is the slow burn, harmonica tinged "I Only Wanna Be With You."

With someone who has made a career as a writer, Swingin’ from the Hip is a little bit of a disappointment that Rose never tries her hand at songwriting. She takes the easy route by recording songs from others and while they are not bad, it would be better to see her extend her reign as a writer.

In other words, seeing her shoot from the hip would be better than just merely "swingin’." - EDGE Magazine

Isabel Rose is a lady who makes things happen, both onstage and off. Screenwriter, novelist, movie star, off-Broadway star... none of these callings has proven too much for Isabel Rose. It should be no surprise that her debut album, Swingin' From The Hip looks poised to prove another facet of this versatile and prolific performer. Born on Manhattan's Upper East Side, Isabel Rose has steeped in New York's culture almost from her birth, and her love of both jazz, Broadway and pop music shines through on Swingin' From The Hip.

Rose opens with the bossa nova swing of "Aquarius", adapted from the rock musical hair. Rose has a fine voice, a bit reserved but full of warm tone and a bit of Vegas swagger here (that sophisticated Rat Pack swing). Rose swings up Irving Berlin's "Lovely Day" (Call Me Madam) in fine fashion, keeping the Broadway feel of the original while updating it for hep cats everywhere. Rose goes big band for Rodgers & Hammerstein's "I Enjoy Being A Girl" (Flower Drum Song). The arrangement fits Isabel Rose nicely. "Temptation" is well done, and leads into the slinky nightclub arrangement of Pat Benetar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot", injecting burlesque undertones into a generally torch-styled interpretation.

One of the highlights of the album is Rose's version of "Haven't We Met", where her voice takes on a slightly darker aspect that's nothing short of breath-taking. The clarity of vocal tone and warmth of Isabel Rose's voice is a real treat. Rose plays it straight on the Harry Noble-penned "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me", which originally spent 18 weeks on the Billboard pop charts for singer Karen Noble in 1952. Rose seems to have a special connection with this one, and makes it her own without substantially changing the song. Rose gives listeners a lighter moment with her cover of "I Only Wanna Be With You", the first single Dusty Springfield ever released. Perhaps Rose's only misstep on the entire album comes on the George Ira Gershwin tune "Boy Wanted". Perhaps it's just the chemistry of the song, but Rose never really sounds like she connects with this one (and its tough trying to stand in the shoes of Ella Fitzgerald, even for a performer of Isabel Rose's talent).

Rose rebounds nicely on Lerner & Lowe's "On The Street Where You Live" (My Fair Lady), an amazing swing version of the Broadway classic. Rose is inspired here, as will you be. Johnny Mercer's "Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive" gets the royal treatment from Rose. Vocally the song is well performed, although the tempo, and therefore Rose, do sound a bit rushed at times. Rose closes with Cy Coleman's "The Best Is Yet To Come" in a stripped down arrangement that shows off Rose's voice and also features some tremendous guitar work.

Isabel Rose is now officially a quintuple threat. Swingin' From The Hip should establish Rose as a vocal force to be reckoned with, and you can't help but have respect for the highly professional and accomplished band she has behind her on the album. Rose recalls the days when great performers would tackle almost any style and make it their own. It's not just a matter of having a voice or a band; there's a cult of personality that surrounds great performers. Sinatra. Babs. Bette. Torme. Bennett. Newton. It wouldn't be entirely surprising if twenty years down the road people were adding Rose to that list.

Rating: 4.5 Stars (Out of 5) - Wildy's World

As overachievers go, Isabel Rose makes Oprah look like a slacker. She is a published author, equally comfortable in the realms of fiction and non-fiction, an award-winning actress who has conquered stage and screens (big and small), a screenwriter whose 2003 hit film Anything But Love was deemed a “charmer” by the Los Angeles Times, and a playwright and composer who adapted her first novel, The J.A.P. Chronicles, into an off-Broadway musical that enjoyed an extended run in early 2006. If that weren’t enough, she also graduated summa cum laude from Yale.

Now the multi-hyphenated Rose adds vocalist to her list of accomplishments. The cover of her debut album, Swingin’ From the Hip, cheekily recalls Ann-Margret back in her hip-twitching Bye Bye Birdie days. She also owes a stylistic debt to the young Ms. Olsson, but Rose’s purring sexiness is a jigger or two more mature, suggesting shades of Mary Ford and placing her squarely at the crossroads of jazz and cabaret (with a dash of Broadway power and pizzazz for good measure).

Understandably for someone of Rose’s myriad interests, her playlist is remarkably wide-ranging, extending from early Gershwin through Tin Pan Alley, postwar Broadway and ’60s pop to post-disco power rock. She rides in on Esquivel-worthy waves, lifting “Aquarius” from its earthy Hair roots and sending it into a Starlight Express whirl. She then downshifts into a shimmering “Oh, What A Beautiful Morning” that ushers in a swirling, sun-dappled “It’s A Lovely Day Today.” Her Broadway invasion continues with Rogers and Hammerstein’s “I Enjoy Being A Girl,” performing it straight (well, as straight as that indelibly campy tune can be performed) for the first 90 seconds or so, then gradually turning up the heat until it reaches the fevered pitch of an erotic striptease. On “Temptation,” Rose harkens back to the golden days of Patti Page (and Mary Ford) when triple-tracked vocals were all the rage, creating sizzling, country-tinged harmonies that seem equal parts McGuire Sisters and Bangles.

Next, another sharp left turn as Rose transforms, with surprising success, Pat Benatar’s take-no-prisoners anthem “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” into a sultry ballad. The calliope lilt of her “Haven’t Me Met” strongly hints at Kenny Rankin’s delightfully lithe version. “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me,” less dramatically impassioned that the Mel Carter original, is frothily reinvented as a girl group finger-snapper, and Dusty Springfield’s greased-lightening “I Only Want to Be With You” is effectively slowed to a hymn-like pace.

Rose’s “Boy Wanted” can’t compare to Ella’s deliciously sweet, cashmere-cuddly treatment, crafted by Nelson Riddle for her incomparable, 1959 The George and Ira Gershwin Song Book, but her reading is engagingly effervescent. Ditto her buoyant “On the Street Where You Live.” She goes stiletto-to-stiletto with Ann-Margret on the bizarre, post-apocalyptic fantasy “Thirteen Men,” a long-ago staple of the Swedish sex kitten’s Vegas shows.

Rose’s jazz chops are most evident throughout a high-spirited, loosen-all-the-stays “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive,” but are near-equally strong on the playfully sensuous “The Best Is Yet to Come” that closes the album.

With its mishmash of styles, eras and genres, Swingin’ From the Hip does cast Rose as a rather chameleon-esque musical figure. Best to think of it as vibrant sampler, filled with delectably bite-sized jazz, pop, Broadway and cabaret nuggets. - Jazz Times