Reviews
Singer and lyricist Sarah Pillow puts lyrics to wonderful off the beaten track jazz tunes and sings standards. On Wanderer she has assembled a dream band of Clark, pianist David Kikoski, saxophonist Donny McCaslin, bassist Joe Martin, while vibraphonist Marc Wagnon serves as arranger and producer. Every drummer knows about (or should know about) Mike Clark. But Mike Clark is not just a funk meister, post-bop drummer… he is also a supportive sideman. Clark’s relaxed bossa on “So Many Stars” is about as far away from “Actual Proof” as it can get, but Clark puts the same conviction into every groove he plays. Listen to how he plays the slick arrangement of “A Night in Tunisia,” the tenderness of “Duke’s Sound of Love,” the relaxed swing of “How High the Moon,” and the drive of Mingus’ “Tonight at Noon.” Pat Metheny’s funky “The First Circle” brings us to new territory for the band, but old territory for Clark. Egberto Gismonti’s “Café” is loose and airy and where the band really shines. This is the best track on the record. After the deconstructed intro to “Stella by Starlight” the band finds a nice groove, but the intro was very cool (almost too cool to leave as “just” an intro!) The rhythm section thrives on Chick Corea’s “500 Miles High.” The funky drum and voice duet intro on “Wayfarin’ Stranger” works very well, I was almost disappointed to hear the rest of the band enter. But they bring an additional texture to the tune that works very well, and there’s Clark the funk-meister bringing everything back home. What a nice experience to hear Mike Clark in a different musical situ-ation, as a sideman, and surrounded by stellar musicians and arrangements.
Modern Drummer
Sarah Pillow “A Night In Tunisia” from Wanderer (Buckyball Records) - Sarah Pillow, a powerful singer with a memorable voice, has had successful careers singing jazz, classical music, and the repertoire of past centuries. While Wanderer is a jazz-oriented set of music, she covers a wide range of songs, excelling in every area. For this special project, the vocalist is joined by her husband and very skilled vibraphonist Marc Wagnon (who provided the arrangements), and a set of all-stars from several generations: tenor-saxophonist Donny McCaslin, altoist Nicola Caminiti, trumpeter Joey Curreri, pianist Dave Kikoski, bassist Joe Martin, and drummer Mike Clark. Wagnon, McCaslin and Curreri in particular are well featured throughout the program. Throughout Wanderer, her singing is creative, inventive, and powerful.
Bob Osborne Different Noise
Sarah Pillow – Wanderer: A Genre-Defying Vocal Masterpiece Between Jazz, Classical Elegance and Musical Adventure. This remarkable album is far more than a collection of jazz standards and contemporary classics. It is a musical voyage through styles, eras, and emotional landscapes, guided by a singer whose artistic curiosity knows no boundaries. Drawing upon a career that has embraced jazz, classical music, opera, medieval repertoire, and adventurous crossover projects, Sarah Pillow approaches every song with the confidence of an explorer and the sensitivity of a storyteller.
The title Wanderer could hardly be more appropriate. Throughout thirteen beautifully crafted tracks, Sarah Pillow travels effortlessly from the bebop fire of Dizzy Gillespie to the lyrical sophistication of Pat Metheny, from the Brazilian elegance of Sergio Mendes and Egberto Gismonti to the visionary genius of Charles Mingus. Yet despite the diversity of the repertoire, the album never feels fragmented. What unifies these songs is the unmistakable personality of the artist interpreting them.
For this project, Pillow is surrounded by an exceptional ensemble. Her husband, vibraphonist Marc Wagnon, provides imaginative and sophisticated arrangements that serve as the album’s architectural foundation. The supporting cast reads like a who’s who of contemporary jazz: the brilliant tenor saxophonist Donny McCaslin, internationally acclaimed for his work with both jazz innovators and David Bowie’s final masterpiece Blackstar; the expressive alto saxophonist Nicola Caminiti; trumpeter Joey Curreri; pianist Dave Kikoski; bassist Joe Martin; and legendary drummer Mike Clark, whose groundbreaking work with Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters helped redefine modern jazz-funk.
The album opens with a sparkling interpretation of Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies”. Immediately, Pillow establishes the album’s spirit: joyful and adventurous. Her phrasing dances effortlessly around the arrangement, while the ensemble provides a vibrant backdrop that transforms a familiar standard into something freshly invigorating.
The Brazilian-flavoured “So Many Stars” showcases another side of her artistry. Here, Pillow demonstrates an instinctive understanding of melody and atmosphere, allowing the song’s poetic beauty to unfold naturally. The performance captures the wistful elegance that made the composition a classic while adding her own emotional depth.
One of the album’s undeniable highlights is “A Night in Tunisia”. Many singers approach this Dizzy Gillespie classic with caution; Pillow attacks it with fearless confidence. Her scat singing is exhilarating, playful, and technically dazzling without ever becoming an exercise in virtuosity for its own sake. Meanwhile, Donny McCaslin delivers a blistering tenor saxophone performance that matches the intensity of the vocal interpretation note for note. The result is pure jazz excitement.
The presence of Charles Mingus looms large over Wanderer, with no fewer than three compositions included. This is significant because Mingus’s vocal works remain surprisingly underexplored compared to his instrumental masterpieces.
Pillow’s decision to champion these pieces reveals both her adventurous spirit and her deep understanding of jazz history. “Duke Ellington’s Sound of Love” becomes a moving meditation on artistic lineage, while “Eclipse” reveals its mysterious, almost cinematic beauty. Perhaps most fascinating is “Tonight at Noon”, where Pillow contributes her own lyrics to Mingus’s famously unconventional composition. The performance captures the restless imagination that made Mingus one of the most original voices in jazz history.
Another standout is “How High the Moon (for Ella)”. Rather than imitating Ella Fitzgerald, a temptation that has trapped countless vocalists, Sarah Pillow offers a heartfelt tribute that acknowledges the master’s influence while remaining entirely her own. It is a fantastic lesson in how to honour tradition without becoming imprisoned by it.
Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays’s “The First Circle” receives one of the album’s most haunting treatments. Pillow’s vocal passages float above the ensemble with extraordinary grace, transforming the composition into an almost spiritual experience. Here, listeners can hear the influence of her classical training, not in a rigid or academic way, but in the purity of her tone and her remarkable control of colour and texture.
Similarly captivating is “500 Miles High”, Chick Corea‘s classic fusion-era composition. Pillow embraces the song’s expansive harmonic landscape, delivering a performance that balances emotional warmth with technical sophistication. The arrangement allows the musicians ample room to stretch out while maintaining a strong narrative arc.
The album also benefits from Pillow’s gift for uncovering connections between seemingly disparate musical worlds. Her interpretation of Egberto Gismonti‘s “Café (for Erik)” demonstrates her ability to inhabit music that exists beyond traditional jazz categories, while “Nature Boy” becomes a deeply personal reflection rather than merely another version of a well-known standard.
The closing “Wayfarin’ Stranger” is particularly inspired. This traditional American folk song, with its themes of travel, longing, and spiritual searching, serves as a perfect conclusion to an album called Wanderer. It also reflects Pillow’s own artistic journey: a musician moving freely between traditions, genres, and centuries in pursuit of deeper forms of expression.
What makes Wanderer especially fascinating is how naturally it fits within Sarah Pillow’s broader artistic universe. An artist equally at home performing medieval music, contemporary jazz, opera, and interdisciplinary projects exploring the connections between science, history, and music. Her acclaimed work with Galileo’s Daughters, including the award-winning Perpetual Motion project, demonstrates the same intellectual curiosity and refusal to accept artistic boundaries that animate Wanderer.
Likewise, her recent Incarnate Jazz project, bringing together composers as diverse as Hildegard von Bingen, Guillaume Machaut, Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, and Chick Corea, reveals a musician who understands that music’s deepest connections often transcend chronology and style. In many ways, Wanderer feels like a distilled expression of that philosophy.
The production is exemplary, allowing every instrument to breathe while maintaining a cohesive ensemble sound. Marc Wagnon’s arrangements deserve special praise for balancing structure and spontaneity, creating frameworks that support both the vocalist and the outstanding soloists.
This GREAT album confirms Sarah Pillow as one of the most distinctive vocal artists. Her ability to draw equally from jazz, classical music, early music, and contemporary experimentation gives her a perspective unlike anyone else’s. With Wanderer, Sarah Pillow does not simply revisit great songs, she inhabits them, reshapes them, and ultimately makes them her own. She never sounds like a singer merely moving between styles; she sounds completely at home in all of them. That rare versatility gives the album a distinctive identity.
A rich and deeply satisfying album that rewards repeated listening. A magnificent achievement and one of the most compelling vocal jazz releases in recent memory.
Frankie Pfeiffer Editor in chief – PARIS-MOVE
Few singers have followed a musical path as deliberately unpredictable as Sarah Pillow. Her career has moved among straight-ahead jazz, classical singing and progressive rock, often dissolving the boundaries between them. On Wanderer, she returns decisively to her jazz roots, approaching the tradition with the curiosity of an artist who has spent decades travelling beyond it.
The album is built around a deceptively expansive idea. Each of its 13 compositions relates in some way to travelling, yearning or returning. Pillow has described its central figure as an “astral nomad”: someone moving through both physical and imaginative space in pursuit of discovery.
That concept gathers together material that might otherwise seem almost impossibly eclectic. The album opens with Irving Berlin’s standard, “Blue Skies.” Pillow picks up the tempo on her interpretation, delivering a more energetic performance than the Fitzgerald classic we all know and love.
The celestial side of the theme immediately announces itself through Pillow’s dreamy performance of Sergio Mendes’ “So Many Stars.” The classic pop sound of “How High the Moon” is reinterpreted with a jazzier, horn-led arrangement, somewhat diverging from its romantic image. Even “Stella by Starlight,” one of the most frequently revisited standards in jazz, earns its place within a larger constellation.
The most revealing choices, however, may be the three pieces associated with Charles Mingus: “Duke Ellington’s Sound of Love,” “Tonight at Noon” and “Eclipse.” Mingus’ music carries emotional contradictions that suit Pillow’s concept particularly well: tenderness beside volatility, reverence beside unease and discipline constantly pushing against freedom.
There is nevertheless a risk within the album’s ambitious design. “Wandering” is broad enough to connect almost any song to any other, and could easily feel more like an anthology than a unified statement. But its closing movement from “500 Miles High” through “Nature Boy” to “Wayfarin’ Stranger” appears particularly well judged: the album descends from the cosmic to the human, finally leaving behind sophisticated metropolitan jazz language for a song of mortality, faith and homecoming.
Rather than choosing one road, Wanderer celebrates the act of moving between them. Its real subject is artistic curiosity: the conviction that jazz remains most alive when a musician is willing to leave familiar territory without losing sight of where the journey began.
Skope Magazine