Champian's Trio was a "Festival Highlight" at the Litchfield Jazz Fest this summer

Published in the October issue of the New York City Jazz Record

Champian Fulton’s trio was a festival highlight. Equally adept and fiercely experimental as a singer and pianist, she plays aggressively with tempo and a wide vocal range (sans scat singing). Fulton shifts dynamics rapidly without ever losing touch with a song’s melody: a Fulton trademark is a jump to the top of her range at the end of a line. Her all-standards program featured ace support from Hide Tanaka (bass) and Fukushi Tainaka (drums), a formidable rhythm section that’s been with Fulton for two decades. When not singing or playing during her set, Fulton offered historical tidbits about songs from the Great American Songbook such as the Silver/Lewis/Sherman “Every Now and Then”, recorded by Helen Humes half a dozen times. “Too Marvelous for Words” got an especially delicate treatment. And any thought that Fulton couldn’t make it as just a pianist were dispelled by a spirited take on Phineas Newborn Jr.’s “Theme for Basie”. Arguably best heard live, that’s indeed the format for Fulton on her latest release, Meet Me at Birdland (s/r).