“Connie Han, dressed in skin-tight leather, tosses back her long and lustrous black hair, then walks like a prowling cat to the piano. She sits down, doesn't smile, looks darkly at the keyboard. She pauses then starts playing a percussive riff. Lights! The band emerges from the shadows and falls in behind her.
Han, aged 22, from Los Angeles, has been playing piano and dreaming of this moment since she was five years old. "Another Kind of Right," the first number on Crime Zone, is a tune she wrote with Freddie Hubbard's "One of Another Kind" in mind. It's tough and provocative, just her style. She says, "The bridge is a swaggering Freddie Hubbard style of playing. Bill Wysaske (her drummer and general musical guru) arranged and curated a lot of what goes on here. It was his idea to make the transition from acoustic piano to Fender Rhodes for my solo. It gives the music a breath of fresh air. The song is definitely inspired by that post-bop, pre-fusion sound straight out of the late '60s and early '70s." Han knows where she's coming from and where she's going. With this album she's booking a place as a star in the jazz firmament of tomorrow.”
“Watch out for Connie Han, the face (and shape) of jazz to come.”
View the rest of the review here. “
