Jazz: Dena DeRose

Like Shirley Horn, singer and pianist Dena DeRose knows how to inhabit the mood of a song. This is evident throughout "Live at the Jazz Standard, Volume Two" (Maxjazz), a set that also conveys the chemistry of her working band. DeRose, bassist Martin Wind and drummer Matt Wilson, together for seven years, could serve as a model for intimacy, dynamics and joy on the bandstand.

The set opens with "The Ruby and the Pearl," a minor-key standard colored by De-Rose's vocal shadings and brooding, Bill Evans-tinged piano chords. "When Lights Are Low," by Benny Carter and Spencer Williams, shows the hip, swinging, lived-in quality of the trio. "Detour Ahead," another solid standard, is transformed by Wilson's jazz-rock beat and the group's driving groove. "Laughing at Life" builds to a terrific, hard-swinging climax.

As a singer, DeRose recalls Horn, Sheila Jordan and Durham's Nnenna Freelon, if anyone. There's hip phrasing coupled with sincerity. Her piano is full of soul -- lines that ignite and burn for a distance like a fuse, block-chord passages that build to successive higher levels and, at the other end of the spectrum, quiet interludes of Evans-like melancholy.