Songbirds do fly

While Renee Olstead may have begun her career on US television, it’s her singing of jazz-inflected standards that has been earning praises, and this started when she was just 15 (she’s now 19). In the case of Joanna Wang, she’s a certified (if somewhat reluctant) Taiwanese superstar. Raised in Los Angeles, she’s the daughter of celebrated music producer Ji-Ping Wang.

Skylark — Renee Olstead (Warner Music). If reinvention was the name of the game, Renee Olstead would be a winner, hands down. Known primarily as a television ingenue, she suddenly shifted gears and “spawned” a number of CDs that belied her tender age as she took on the mantle of torch singer and jazz chanteuse. Skylark is the long awaited fourth studio album, and besides her cover of modern classics, she also includes a number of self-penned songs. Livelier than say, Diana Krall, Renee also flirts with swing and rockabilly tunes like Hit the Road Jack and Ain’t We Got Fun. When I Fall In Love has Chris Botti on trumpet and I especially liked her Lover Man and her own composition, Hold Me Now. David Foster produces, and we know how carefully he chooses his projects.

Joanna and Wang Ruo Lin — Joanna Wang (SonyBMG). In a recent interview in Singapore, Joanna made the by-now classic gripe of most singer-songwriters, the one that revolves around how the producers and management want her going in one direction of being pop star and recording covers, while there’s a personal vision the artist would like to explore and concentrate on. Pushed as Taiwan’s own version of Norah Jones or Lisa Ono, the music of Joanna is in fact very personal and unique, as evidenced on this double CD. Gravel-voiced, she’s more like a Corinne May. Tikiville is one of the more upbeat songs with commercial possibilities, while the second CD is more like an adult storybook, seemingly written to be the music of a stage play.