MARILYN KLEINBERG featuring WILL GALISON, Let Your Heart Lead the Way

Though the cover of highly Marilyn Kleinberg’s debut album Let Your Heart Lead the Way reads, “Featuring Will Galison,” it’s significant that when we save the CD to iTunes, venerated NYC club singer/master Songbook interpreter and legendary harmonica great have equal billing.

Though it’s a quartet album also featuring pianist John Di Martino, bassist Noriko Ueda and drummer Victor Lewis, Kleinberg and Galison’s seamless melodic/harmonic rapport – and his extensive adventurous soloing – are the hypnotic, compelling forces that make this collection of slow simmering arrangements (of well-known and obscure classics) so exquisite.

The project evolved from a night when Galison caught the singer performing at the Soapbox Gallery in Brooklyn with DiMartino and Ueda. Instantly mesmerized by her rich, soulful vocals and inviting emotional phrasing, he immediately offered to produce a recording of the trio. He had only two conditions – add Lewis to the rhythm section and that he, Galison, be featured as a soloist.

While the repertoire includes magnificent arrangements of gems like “Invitation,” “Alfie” and Stevie Wonder’s lovely, often overlooked, socially conscious “Visions,” there’s a bit of whimsy in a set list that follows the sweet deep tin-loveness of “Then I’ll Be Tired of You” with the fresh, easy swiminging perspective of the start of romance “I Just Found Out About Love.”

Kleinberg and Galison also bring a unique heartfelt depth to the familiar “If I Only Had a Brain” by adding overlooked opening lyrics and singing it slower and with more warmth than we usually hear it. Later in the set, when Kleinberg sings “You Won’t Forget Me,” she’s telling a truth that every listener as yet unfamiliar with her will feel as they listen to this wonderful revelation of a recording.