The Christine Rosholt Quintet – Lipstick: Live At The Dakota (Perfect Lips)
Released – February 2, 2009
I’m not crazy about live recordings. They typically don’t do justice to the music.
It’s tough to make any venue sound as good as a recording studio. I don’t applaud solos in my living room. Don’t like tinkling glasses, the murmur of people. And while none of that bothers me when I’m sitting in a club with a cool beverage in my hand, I’m less forgiving when it’s all on the big speakers in the living room or plugged into my ears at six in the morning.
So. Why have I spent the last week commuting with Christine Rosholt plugged in?
Because she and the band are that good, and so is the recording.
I like Ms. Rosholt’s work, and thought her first recording was very good. This one is better – it’s as if she’s drawing energy from the live audience. There’s a difference between “recording artist” and “performer,” yes? For Ms. Rosholt, it’s apparently the difference between “unplugged,” and “live wire.”
Ms. Rosholt, along with her band – Tanner Taylor on piano, bassist Graydon Peterson, drummer Jay Epstein and saxophonist Dave Karr, have put together nicely fresh arrangements for fifteen tunes that never stray far from the main street of Standardsville. Favorites included Frank Loesser’s “If I Were A Bell,” along with a swingy “Cheek to Cheek,” and “Devil May Care.” Ms. Rosholt is in her element, here, as a performer. Recorded at Minneapolis’ Dakota Jazz Club, Ms. Rosholt is clearly a different person on stage, and I’m a fan. I was checking her calendar to see if an east-coast swing is on tap.
There’s nothing “same old” about this disc. Kudos to those involved on the technical side of the recording. It doesn’t sound like it was recorded outside of a studio; and yet the chemistry of a live performance is what makes it so doggone good. Ms. Rosholt and the gang are not only in their groove, but firing on all cylinders.
Being the design slave that I am, a shout out to Ann Marsden for the photos and Robyn Lewis for the cover design. Good stuff on this disc, which gets a highest recommendation.
Bookmark this article: 
