Stella Cole, My Funny Valentine Review

Stella Cole’s My Funny Valentine: Classic Elegance Through Standards

By Sylvannia Garutch

Stella Cole’s My Funny Valentine is a three-song standards set deliberately built around a distinct jazz-vocal format. The songs demonstrate how Cole conveys the character of each setting. The result is a sequence of songs of classic jazz fluency. An argument, track by track, that Cole understands how to sing these standards and how to evoke their characters.

What becomes clear early is that the differences between tracks are not superficial shifts in arrangement, but changes in underlying musical framing. In the opening title track, “My Funny Valentine, the orchestral ballad setting establishes the mood for development. The voice introduces the material; her interpretation carries the full character of the melody.  After Cole sings the melody, the strings take over, expanding the harmonic and melodic space through layered writing and internal counterpoint before returning the spotlight to the vocal for the next build.

The movement is mood handoffs, voice to strings, strings back to voice, with each transition being a phase in a broader arc that moves towards climax and release. Cole’s phrasing responds to the setting with classic jazz singing. Her sustained tone, controlled vibrato, and carefully shaped dynamics sit within the orchestral frame, pushing the elegance and moving with it.

“You Go to My Head” operates on an entirely different principle. Instead of handing off the form to another ensemble block, the vocal remains embedded within a continuous exchange with the rhythm section. The rhythm section establishes a light swing with brushes, walking bass, and piano figures, and the vocal remains embedded within that motion rather than stepping outside it. The piano (Alan Broadbent) answers between phrases, inserting short fills that anticipate the next line, so that the form moves forward through exchange rather than handoff.

When the transition to the solo arrives, it does so through a dovetail as the final vocal phrase extends directly into the piano’s opening line without a break. Within this setting, Cole adjusts her phrasing accordingly: changing one or two notes in the melody to alter its landing, stretching or compressing rhythms across bar lines, and using subtle glissandi into and out of pitches. Ensemble hits in the bridge, especially around “get a hold of yourself,” tighten the rhythmic focus. Cole establishes the head as a conversational flow with the trio, making her interpretation of this standard memorable and enjoyable. The melody remains stable as the movement within it is fluid.

“The Nearness of You” introduces a third approach, one that unfolds as the music shifts in time. It begins in rubato, with piano outlining a descending line in rich chord voicings under a spacious vocal entry. Time is only lightly implied until the bass enters on “When you’re in my arms,” sustaining long tones that begin to anchor the pulse. From there, the ensemble organizes into a medium-slow swing as the bass moves from held notes into a walking line, the drums enter to support the time feel, and the piano shifts from free accompaniment into time-based comping before taking a solo that moves from chordal texture into right-hand single-line playing.

As the structure settles into swing, Cole expands with greater projection, more pronounced dynamic shaping, and continued melodic variation within the line. By the end, that process reverses. The walking feel drops out, time loosens back into rubato, and the final held note on “you” resolves over piano fills in a gentle release. The track does not hold a single framing; it moves through several, and the performance adapts at each stage.

Across all three tracks, the same larger contour holds: a clear opening statement, a period of expansion through instrumental and vocal development, a defined peak, and a return to a reduced, quieter texture. The change is in how that shape is achieved. In the orchestral setting, strings take over after the initial vocal statement and drive the development through layered writing. In the trio, the piano initiates transitions and redirects momentum through phrase-by-phrase interaction. In the hybrid setting, the bass signals the shift from rubato to time, setting the entire structure in motion. In each case, the instrumental roles support the voice. Cole adjusts to those roles as the structure shifts around it to deliver a unified classic jazz sound.

Taken together, My Funny Valentine demonstrates how Cole operates and moves within three musical settings. The differences between tracks are not just changes in texture, but changes in how mood is built, how transitions take place, and how the vocals and ensemble carry momentum.

Cole’s performance aligns with sustained tone and classic jazz phrasing in the orchestral setting, rhythmic flexibility and conversational exchange in the trio, and expanded projection across evolving time feel in the hybrid. The cohesion comes from consistent behavior; as the music shifts, the voice shifts with it, sustaining clarity of line, control of timing, and responsiveness to the ensemble at each stage.