Review: JAZZ WITH JESSICA, JOHN, AND BRYAN Delights Crowd at The Green Room 42

Often do we sing of romance, but not enough of the other forms of love that enrich our lives. The delightful former teacher-student duo, John Carden and Jessica Hill, flipped that script on March 14 at The Green Room 42, accompanied by music director and composer Bryan Reeder at the piano, Rob Adkins on bass, and Glenn Crytzer on guitar.

Picture in your mind a cottontail galloping across spring fields, or a bird soaring into the clouds — that’s how Jessica Hill’s voice sounded and made our hearts feel. She covered remarkable breadth in both repertoire and emotion, lending her sweet sound and easygoing charm to songs spanning the Great American Songbook and hit musicals like The Last Five Years. One moment she was a soft-spoken but vengeful lover in “Cry Me a River,” the other she was a Disney princess in her ingenious mashup of “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes” and “Smile” by Nat King Cole. This is an exciting young actor that seemed as comfortable owning the moment in “A Summer in Ohio,” as delivering a key word’s meaning with conversational phrasing.

John Carden’s stage presence was instantly agreeable and winsome. Even though songs like “You’re the Top” tend to be treated out of context, he was able to pass the laundry list of praises off as strokes of genius with his sparse but effective gestures, dividing his attention between Hill and the audience. His is a voice that rules in the middle range, readily picking up techniques from a vast toolkit to imbue the standards with fun and earnestness. It earned cheers with spinning high notes, yet really drew the audience in with the tantalizing whispers. A natural storyteller with his laid-back manner and vocal fry, he shared a story of joining his students on an open mic night during the pandemic, before launching into “Witchcraft.”

The instrumentalists carried sultry pieces such as “Old Devil Moon” and jittery, bouncy numbers like “Hit That Jive, Jack” with equal dexterity, setting and amplifying the mood of each song. As Hill shared early in the evening, Carden was her first professor at New York University. All these years of knowing each other as artists and friends had apparently forged a chemistry that makes the enjoyment they feel singing every tune quite infectious. The hour consisted of 15 tracks that flew right by — we are already looking forward to their return.