Deborah Silver, Basie Rocks! Review

by Icrom Bigrad

Deborah Silver’s Basie Rocks! (Green Hill Records, 2025) is a high-octane meeting of classic rock and swing-era jazz that showcases how vocal jazz technique can reshape the very heart of these songs: the melody. With the Count Basie Orchestra roaring and refined under Scotty Barnhart’s direction, Silver consistently demonstrates her jazz phrasing, timbral control, and rhythmic elasticity to take the most familiar melodic contours of rock’s canon and transform them into something rooted in swing for an enjoyable fresh expressive.

Take the album’s bold opener, “Paint It, Black.” The melody that Mick Jagger once pushed with gritty urgency is rendered with Silver’s rich, centered jazzy tone. She leans into the line with clarity of pitch and rhythmic pocket of the Afro-Cuban feel. Her vocal embellishments bring out the song’s minor-key motif. The orchestra transitions to swing as Silver amplifies the melody with improvisatory flourishes that highlight its adaptability. By the close, her upper-register resonance weaves seamlessly with Arturo Sandoval’s muted trumpet fills.

On “Baby, I Love Your Way,” Silver turns Peter Frampton’s iconic refrain into a warm jazz ballad. The melody is instantly recognizable as she sculpts it with expressive glissandos, appoggiaturas, and a subtle behind-the-beat delivery that reveals new jazz colors in the tune. The brass and reeds swell, supporting her, setting up Frampton’s expressive solo. Silver’s ability to caress the melodic line by sometimes laying back, sometimes leaning forward is what that makes this version resonate. The Basie band gives her a canvas, and she paints the melody anew with each phrase.

The duet with Kurt Elling on “Tainted Love” offers a striking reconfiguration of a pop hook. What was once synth-driven becomes a pliable jazz blues phrase in the hands of two master jazz vocalists. Silver and Elling bend notes, exchange ornamented figures, and gradually push the melody higher in register, turning repetition into dramatic development. Their trading throughout emphasizes how jazz singers can treat a melody with the language of jazz to create something fresh.

Even on playful tracks like “A Hard Day’s Night,” the transformation of melody is key. Silver’s swinging articulation and melodic interjections are musical, expressing this melody in a new light. Her blues-drenched embellishments give weight to the melodic contour, while the Basie horns reframe the hook as a series of riff-based shout chorus. Silver’s vocal shaping ensures the melody never dissolves and is recharged with swing vitality.

Elsewhere, Silver shows equal skill in reimagining melodic lines: on “Every Breath You Take,” she strips away the pop sheen to expose the song’s sensual swing core. “Bennie and the Jets” swings Elton John’s iconic refrain with jazz swagger and sly inflection. On “Fly Like an Eagle,” she relaxes the melody into a cool nocturnal drift, her phrases floating over the swinging Count Basie Orchestra. Each of her phrases underscores the melody being interpreted by a jazz singer as a living entity open to rhythmic play, harmonic reinterpretation, and emotional shading.

Basie Rocks! succeeds in taking classic rock songs and transforming them into jazz explorations.  The Basie Orchestra’s impeccable power and the guest stars’ star wattage keep the energy high. Silver shows how melody, the most recognizable fragment of a song, can be transformed with jazz artistry into something beautifully jazzy. It is this melodic reinvention that ensures these rock classics find a second life on the jazz bandstand, connecting generations by reshaping songs we thought we already knew.