Linnzi Zaorski

Linnzi Zaorski
Hot Wax and Whiskey
(self-released)

Ninth Ward chanteuse Linnzi Zaorski is a familiar and beguiling sight, holding down the stage anywhere cocktails are served. With vintage mic and dresses, and a gardenia tucked into her platinum locks, it's hard to separate her live appeal from the supper-club set dressing aspect. Live, she turns a barroom into a speakeasy with a wink and a whisper. On the record, her light, girlish voice and Delta Royale band turn out standards with aplomb. It's tough to make a mark on swinging standards like 'Bei Meir Bist Du Schoen," and on emotionally drenched tracks like 'Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans" and Billie Holiday's aching 'Good Morning Heartache," but Zaorski, along with other familiar downtown faces like Rob Wagner on sax and the fresh touch of Washboard Chaz on a few tracks " did Glenn Miller have a washboard? " does admirably. Sweet and a little spicy, Zaorski adds a kick to a familiar recipe, but for the full effect, catch her after dark with a drink in your hand. --Alison Fensterstock

- Gambit Weekly

While technique, control and tone are important aspects of jazz singing, it is a performer's individual style that gets them recognized. Youcan learn technique, but not style. Throwback torch singer Linnzi Zaorski understands the importance of style as her debut album is brimming with it.Throughout, Zaorski is backed by a sympathetic quartet including Ryan Burrage on reeds, Jackson Square Band veteran Seva Venet on guitar,Charlie Fardela on trumpet and Robert snow providing the backbone on upright bass. Unlike her other gig with the New Orleans Jazz Vipers, Delta Royale veers away from the Hot Club swing into more of a singer's repertoire of popular standards made famous by the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holliday. But Zaorski finds a voice outside of these singing giants on oft-covered classics like "Lullaby of Birdland" and"Stars fell On Alabama." Eschewing the pathos of Billie Holiday and the studied perfection of Ella, Zaorski evokes the great mildred Bailey (especially on the Bailey vehicle "Rockin Chair") with her stylized enunciation and bright tone. While it is Zaorski's affair, the band takes the spotlight swinging mightily on a hotversion of "What A Little Moonlight Can Do." But it is to the band's credit as accompanists that the focus remains on the voice of Zaorski.Even when singing laments like "Why Was I Born?" you get the impression that beneath the pout, there is an assured smirk, that when she declares "Our Love Is Here To Stay," shes crosing her fingers. This girl's definately got style.Linnzi Zaorski and Delta Royale seduce listeners weekly at the Spotted Cat. - Offbeat Magazine

This was a story turned commentary by Andrei Codrescu that was featured on NPR's "All Things Considered" in September 2006.
To hear the commentary with the audio as heard on NPR, visit this link-- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6154797


Linnzi Zaorski, my favorite chanteuse, was bemoaning the dearth of performance opportunities in post-K New Orleans and the fact that she was now on the other side of her mid-20s and she was broke. When she had refugiated herself to New York after the storm, she hadn't lacked for gigs. She worked every night, sometimes two clubs a night. She gave generously of her time when I asked her to introduce a reading I was giving at the Bowery Poetry Club. Among other things, she sang Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans, and she teared up singing it, and it was not long after that, I believe, that she decided to come back to New Orleans. Beautiful move, all heart, but how to survive? I suggested she star in a movie soon, because she looks just right, a cross between an icy Hitchcock blonde and a silent-movie era comedienne. Maybe because we were having this discussion at Molly's , I envisioned a Japanese setting for her to star in. I dreamed up this scenario: it's 1936 and the Emperor of Japan keeps hallucinating this American jazz singer. She appears to him every night dressed in different Twenties and Thirties styles and sings songs that keep the Emperor agitated and sleepless. He travels incognito to America and, one night in a New Orleans jazz club, hears Linnzi and realizes that she's his hallucination. He kidnaps her and takes her to Japan, but she is accused of being a spy and arrested. In fact, she is a spy and is condemned to death by a military court. After she is executed (sorry, Linnzi, that's the only bad part) she returns to haunt the Japanese royals and military class. They hear her singing every night. In order to stop the jazz madness that's undermining their morals and their posture, they bomb Pearl Harbour. Or something like that. I'm no screen writer, but I figured that an apocalyptic ending with a reference to history never hurt a movie. Anyway, that plus lots of eventual complications, other flashbacks, flashforwards, flash upwards, flash across borders, should give Linnzi just the vehicle. Now we need a writer, director, and producers. - NPR and various newspapers

Somewhere in New Orleans ninth ward is an exceptional torch singer that appears to be a cross between Cyndi Lauper and Betty Boop. Her name is Linnzi Zaorski, and in the broad field of New Orleans Jazz artists she is an extreme breath of fresh air. Her voice maybe somewhat high pitched and she might be playing it all up as camp, but Linnzi Zaorski is a unique musical commodity and her CD, “Hotsy Totsy” is a sheer delight to listen to.

Ms. Zaorski is the kind of artist that you find standing in front of a 1940s style microphone, in a long flowing black gown, gardenia in her hair, and lighted so gently as to only see two pair of fire red lips belt out the tunes of Duke Ellington, George and Ira Gershwin, and Johnny Mercer to a smoke filled cabaret. She and her “Hotsy Totsy” CD are a throwback to an era that many might have forgot. But in recording these classics, Ms. Zaorski compels us to discover such gems as “Hernando’s Hideaway;” “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love;” “Caravan;” and “All Of Me,” as well as nine other exquisitely delivered tunes. Backed up by a capable group of musicians including Seva Venet (guitar), Charlie Fardella (trumpet), Robert Snow (bass), Matt Rhody (violin), and Chaz Leary (washboard), Ms. Zaorski and Delta Royale transport you to another place and time when Technicolor wasn’t the norm and times were simple, and people still dressed up to go out on a Saturday night.

Linnzi Zaorski’s “Hotsy Totsy” earns a hot five peppers for its unique musical appeal. You can purchase this CD and learn more about this wonderful artist online directly from her website at: www.linnzizaorski.com. - Paul Pachter, Zydeco Road

One of the old axioms of the music business is that everything old becomes new again. Whether it's punk, rock, blues or surf music, it's inevitable that the planets of taste align to spark mini-revivals of genres that were popular years or decades ago.

The New Orleans jazz scene is in a constant state of renewal, as indigenous sounds and traditions seduce new generations of locals and transplants alike. Two women on the scene -- Julia La Shae and Linnzi Zaorski -- are the latest to put their stamp on timeless favorites and provide an interesting contrast to song staples that fill the setlists on local bandstands.
Linnzi Zaorski has honed a presentation that swings the stylistic pendulum in the opposite direction. Zaorski is part of the edgy and energetic trad-jazz scene at the Spotted Cat on Frenchmen Street, where bands like the New Orleans Jazz Vipers are pumping up New Orleans' most famous musical export with hip Faubourg Marigny attitude. And with her debut self-titled CD, Zaorski's blossoming into one of the movement's leading lights.

Zaorski's reminiscent of her peer Ingrid Lucia, thanks to an arresting voice and unique vocal timbres. Like Lucia, Zaorski can project a child-like sense of wonder, or impart a wry, almost conversational singing style that would probably make Danny Barker proud. It's simultaneously girlish and powerful, and when Zaorski skips and saunters her way though a standard like "The Way You Look Tonight," it sounds brand new. She's also assembled a formidable band featuring guitarist Seva Venet, bassist Robert Snow, saxophonists and clarinetist Ryan Burrage, and (deja vu) trumpeter Charlie Fardella. The drumless format gives songs like Hoagy Carmichael's "Rockin' Chair" an airy, full ambience that's the perfect match for Zaorski's voice.

What's even more surprising is that the album seamlessly blends seven live tracks recorded at the Spotted Cat, and six studio tracks recorded at the Truck Farm Studio. (Truck Farm engineer Andrew Gilchrist helped shepherd the live recording.) Listening to the CD, it's startling to hear the applause on the live performances. In that respect, Zaorski and her debut CD do what the best live jazz does: transport you to a different, magical place, until you're compelled to clap at its beauty. - Scott Jordan, Gambit Weekly