VIDEO VAULT: The "Dynamic" Dakota Staton!

If you haven't listened to jazz vocalist Dakota Staton before, prepare to be wowed. A few years back, I was trolling around YouTube, as one does, and it kept suggesting that I listen to Dakota Staton, who this white boy had never heard of (because there's only so much music and so many singers I can keep in my noggin). After repeated Dakota suggestions from YouTube, I clicked on this...

...and fell in love. "Let Me Of Uptown" is sure to raise your heart rate with its blaring trumpets - and Dakota, a human trumpet who epitomizes "brass" and "sass." Yet she's so much more than that; she transcends every genre of song she takes on. 

Dakota's career, I soon learned, started out with one hit LP, but it was to be her last. Though she continued recording and was adored by musicians (especially) and critics, she never quite caught on with the public. Yet she was determined. Once her major-label record company cancelled her contract, she hooked up with a smaller label, then hopped a flight to Europe and performed at various hotels and night clubs. 

Did she arrive too late on the scene, as some have claimed, just prior to the birth of rock? Maybe, but whatever the reason, she's ripe for re-discovery. After all, her discography is fairly large and her range, from jazz to bop to blues and gospel, rivals that of many jazz greats. And really, who but Dakota, a masterful "song stylist," as she was labeled, could have released "Dynamic?" Just listen as she rips into each song (like "Anything Goes," for one). She's simply brill.