The heyday of jazz in New York City may have been the 1950’s, ’60s and the ‘70s, yet that timeless candle is alive and well on Let Your Heart Lead The Way, the 2025 album by storied jazz singer and Bronx native Marilyn Kleinberg.

Released on the Waking Up Music imprint, the 11-track, 42-minute album has a renewed feel, thanks in no small part to the memorable jazz classics featured here.

The album took shape early on when Chromatic Harmonica player Will Galison caught Ms. Kleinberg performing at a Brooklyn jazz venue where she was performing with John DiMartino (piano) and Noriko Ueda (bass).

With Galison offering to produce a new album for the singer, the music took shape with Will and drumming Victor Lewis joining the date. The album’s quintet jazz sound is quite effective and the chromatic harmonica gives the sound a jazzy sound view.

Musically, aside from well-known standards, like Burt Bacharach’s “Alfie” and the album closing “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was” by Rogers & Hart, the song selection makes for a jazz enthusiast’s dream come true.

Standards by Duke Ellington, Harold Arlen, Stevie Wonder, Arthur Schwartz, Frank Loesser and others gives the album an inspirational feel. Arlen’s classic from The Wizard Of Oz, “If I Only Had A Brain” adds in a rarely heard introductory verse not featured in the movie. Featuring first class playing all around, a wide selection of music, including some seldom heard jazz classics all wrapped around the artist’s classy vocals makes Let Your Heart Lead The Way a tasteful introduction celebrated NYC jazz vocalist Marilyn Kleinberg.

1. Invitation (4:39)
2. Alfie (5:29)
3. I Didn’t Know About You (4:25)
4. Then I’ll Be Tired of You (5:02)
5. I Just Found Out About Love (3:15)
6. Never Let Me Go (4:58)
7. Visions (5:04)
8. Say It (5:03)
9. If I Only Had A Brain (4:31)
10. You Won’t Forget Me (4:46)
11. I Didn’t Know What Time It Was (5:56)

This dutifully impassioned new recording opens on the shimmering Invitation and then an aching yearn threads throughout Alfie, before we are brought forth the low slung I Didn’t Know About You, the all-embracing Then I’ll Be Tired of You and the gentle finger-snapper I Just Found Out About Love.

Along next is a languishing beauty that flows within Never Let Me Go and the longing of Visions, and they are in turn backed by the warming glow of Say It, the emotive If I Only Had A Brain, the set rounding out on a veritably glistening You Won’t Forget Me, closing on the gently rambunctious fare of I Didn’t Know What Time It Was.

Musicians:
Marilyn Kleinberg on vocals
Will Galison, chromatic harmonica
John DiMartino, piano, arrangement
Noriko Ueda, bass
Victor Lewis, drums

Official Purchase Link