In the Moment

Jazz singer Carol Heffler makes it sound easy on her new recording, ‘exactly.’

By: Susan Van Dongen

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TIME OFF/FRANK WOJCIECHOWSKI
West Windsor resident Carol Heffler will perform at Lambertville Station Feb. 26 to celebrate the release of ‘exactly.’


   As the saying goes, "In youth and beauty, wisdom is rare."
   They’re just words from a piece of paper in a fortune cookie, but so true. Singer-songwriter Carol Heffler reflects on this bit of sagacity, and agrees that her intimate, heartfelt songs wouldn’t have the same "gravitas" if she were singing them as a younger woman. And writing? There’s no way a 20-something could convey the mixed emotions and autumnal feeling of her new song "Bittersweet" — about seeing a son off to college, then bumping around a suddenly empty house.
   Over the last few years, the West Windsor resident with the come-hither voice has been heard more and more locally — at Nassau Park Pavilion, Grounds For Sculpture and Fedora Café, and at Odette’s in New Hope, Pa. — a singer’s mecca. In addition, she’s made appearances in New York City at Chéz Suzette and the Cornelia Street Café.
   Ms. Heffler also has been performing frequently at Lambertville Station, and she’ll return Feb. 26 to celebrate the release of her latest CD, exactly (Peeka Records).
   Ms. Heffler gathered some exceptional musicians for the project — John Bianculli on piano, Angelo DiBraccio on sax, Steve Varner on bass and Dave Mohn on drums — delivering a combination of precision and spontaneity on a spicy array of originals and standards. There’s a jamming version of the classic "Lullaby of Birdland" alongside the lovely "Bittersweet" and the luscious "Pull of the Moon" — another original. "Mahina" was co-written with Marilyn Harris and has a tinge of bossa nova, flavored with Mr. DiBraccio’s sax. An accomplished pianist, Ms. Heffler accompanies herself on "You Are There," an homage to her late father, one of her biggest supporters. The album is rounded out with the self-composed "Same Old Used to Be" and a trio of standards, including "Willow Weep for Me" and the singer’s tender version of "My Foolish Heart."
   It sounds like ideal material for a contemporary or smooth jazz station and Ms. Heffler is making a concerted effort to put exactly out there to programmers across the country, something new this time around.
   "When I started this CD in November 2002, I realized that if I’m really going to do this, I’m going to have to do it now," she says, seated in her warmly colored living room, a vintage Steinway baby grand in the corner. "I’ll have to get my energy going behind it and do everything I can to get the music out there. Our culture doesn’t really support jazz. But I love this music so much and have worked at it and been involved for so much of my life that it’s time to do it in a big way — the biggest way that I can."
   Another dream Ms. Heffler is hatching is a limited national tour. Now that she had a taste of performing in New York, she’d like to see if folks in other parts of the country respond as positively to her pipes.
   "There aren’t too many places to perform around here, and now that my son is in college, there’s (less) holding me back from going on tour," she says. "And I’d love to. It would be so much fun. I haven’t done a tour since the early ’80s."
   Her voice has the control of a classically trained instrument yet with a slight, seasoned huskiness, never strained. She makes it sound so easy. Anyone who has tried to sing into a microphone knows the skill it takes just to hang onto the notes and words, let alone make the music enticing. Ms. Heffler says that although she has the training and ability, she doesn’t want to employ a classical-style vocal tone for this music.
   "I do have the background," she says. "But you don’t want perfection in jazz singing. You’re improvising and feeling it in the moment, so it would just sound stilted if you went for (tonal) perfection. When I prepare a song, I go through and study the words and the phrasing, even the pattern of the consonants and the vowels — which is a classical method. But I do all this and then I let it go because it adds to the delivery and the richness of a song."
   Ms. Heffler says a change in her overall philosophy about singing has animated her performance and recording style, and you can hear it on exactly.
   "I don’t want to just sing the song," she says. "I used to feel that it was enough to know the words, learn the song and be on pitch. Now I really want to be a communicator. I want to move people. I relate to a lot of the same feelings expressed in these songs and I want to give that to the audience. It makes it much more meaningful to be up there experiencing feelings in real time, not just singing about something. I feel so privileged to be able to be able to express myself in this way."
   Ms. Heffler grew up in Summit and began studying jazz piano at age 15. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Hood College in Frederick, Md., and was in graduate school at the University of Michigan when she formed her first trio, performing in small clubs around Ann Arbor. She decided to expand her performance career and moved to Boston where her quintet shared the stage with the Mercer Ellington and Woody Herman orchestras.
   She completed her master’s degree at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, studying voice with Dorothy Ornest and Horace Boyer, and continued to sing in intimate clubs in Boston and Manhattan. After a move to the Big Apple, Ms. Heffler wrote and published numerous songs and earned a very decent living from commercial sessions where she plugged Nestea, Nestlé, Impulse perfume and Dimension shampoo. She also sang backup for Richie Havens, among others.
   Her life changed when she married her husband, Michael, and left full-time performing to raise a son, Ethan. With a background in music education, Ms. Heffler taught music and music theory privately and in area schools. She began to make some live appearances again after the release of her self-published CD Pull of the Moon in 1998. In addition to performing, writing and recording, she continues to teach voice, piano and more recently, songwriting.
   She names Leon Russell, Carole King and Laura Nyro as writing influences. An alto, Ms. Heffler loves deep-voiced women like Carmen McCrae, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday and especially Shirley Horn.
   "She is just amazing," Ms. Heffler says. "I saw her onstage this summer and I have so much respect for her musicality."
   In addition to touring — maybe even Europe, where jazz is as popular as hip-hop or rock — Ms. Heffler might like to get her songs into the hands of some nationally known names, one of the biggest challenges for contemporary songwriters.
   "I’ve had other jazz singers do my music but I haven’t been able to reach anybody famous," she says. "Famous singers get sent so much music and they usually don’t take unsolicited stuff. That’s a real art to get heard."
   But she doesn’t feel stressed by time limitations, noting that jazz artists seem to have longer careers than other musicians.
   "It took me until now to be ready," Ms. Heffler says. "That’s the good thing about jazz. It’s actually a plus to have some life experience that comes through the music and adds depth to it. People can really hear that."
Carol Heffler’s CD release party for exactly will take place at Lambertville Station, 11 Bridge Street, Lambertville, Feb. 26, 8 p.m. No cover, but reservations requested. For information, call (609) 397-8300. On the Web: www.lambertvillestation.com. Carol Heffler on the Web: www.carolheffler.net. exactly is available at www.cdbaby.com