New York Voices: A Day Like This

Raise high the roof beams, the New York Voices are, at long, long last, finally back on disc, and the melding of those four soaring voices demands plenty of sky. It’s been a decade since Peter Eldridge, Darmon Meader, Lauren Kinhan and Kim Nazarian led us on a kaleidoscopic tour of the Paul Simon songbook and seven years since their scintillating Sing! Sing! Sing!

Here, as always, the ever-democratic Voices switch up lead. Eldridge fronts a percolated “Darn That Dream” and a darkly seductive “No Moon At All.” Meader takes over for a joyous, sun-drenched “On a Clear Day” and his own, feathery, floating “A Day Like This” (co-written with Eldridge). Kinhan steps up to the plate for her and Eldridge’s stealthy “The World Keeps You Waiting” and a Latin-accented “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing,” which may well be the most enticing version of the Stevie Wonder tune yet recorded. And Nazarian commands an “In the Wee Small Hours” that progresses from hymn to house-shaker (and back again), a cashmere “Love You Madly” and a Lambert, Hendricks and Ross-worthy whirl through Ross and Hampton Hawes’ “Jackie.”

Then, of course, there are the pull-all-the-stops tracks, with the four meshing into one seamless unit, wordlessly on Eldridge and Jack Donahue’s fiery, Paquito D’Rivera-ignited “Chamego,” polishing their sterling harmonics on “Notice the Moment” (based on Coltrane’s “Moment’s Notice”) and boarding Laura Nyro’s moseying surrey for a “Stoned Soul Picnic” as peaceful as a cloudless Sunday afternoon.

Originally Published October 1, 2007