Jazz and popular singers who mire songs in conventions of the trade are never in short supply, but very rare, indeed, are vocalists like Lincoln Briney who make the familiar sound new.

14 MP3 Songs
JAZZ: Bossa Nova, JAZZ: Jazz Vocals



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Despite a professional recording career stretching back over two decades, Foreign Affair is the first full-length solo album to be released by Northern California native Lincoln Briney. And even if you think youâve never heard him sing before. . .most likely you have. For heâs been on numerous regional and national commercials and radio idâs with different studio vocal groups; on movie soundtracks; and as a backup singer on recordings by the well-known likes of Janis Seigel, Toninho Horta, Gil Goldstein, and Mark Murphy (his Grammy-nominated âSong For The Geeseâ). It was in Seattle that Lincoln began solo recording. Two of the tracks on Foreign Affair were cut there with guitarist Bill Frisell.

Observes writer Peter Monaghan: "[Lincoln] indulges in no vocal hijinks, no grandstanding, no scatting â none of the tired trappings of the trade. Instead, there is transparent attention to mood, feeling and clarity."

And here's how Lincoln describes his sound: âI suppose I am a student of speech level singing. The directness and honesty of in-your-year singing. I really like that. When I first started singing jazz I identified strongly with the west coast sound, that breezy, laid back, minimalist sound. Marty Paich, Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker. All those late fifties L.A. players.â

Nearly all the singing favorites whom he cites fall into the âspeech levelâ category: Shirley Horn, Helen Merrill, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Joao Gilberto.

It should come as no surprise that Briney looks to Brazil for much of his musical inspiration. That country's language has a word, "saudade." Sort of untranslatable, but meaning an inexplicable amalgam of melancholy, tempered with recollections of happiness. Listen to Lincoln and you will begin to comprehend.