Zosja: Around the Sun

photo: Jusitn Heyl

The rules for a female fronted jazz quartet are simple: the singer is in the spotlights and the musicians are reduced to being mere sidemen who might get a few bars at center stage to show off their chops if they are lucky. Dutch combo Zosja do things differently on their debut album Around the Sun. They are a band, taking turns at the steering wheel during their musical trip playing originals and choice standards.

Singer Zosja El Rhazi makes it all sound so easy, effortlessly climbing up and down the scales, guitar player Lucas Meijers can switch from Arabica to fusion to Caribbean and the rhythm tandem Pieter Althuis (bass) and Daniel van Dalen (drums, and the quartet's main composer) know how to insert swing into their inventive back beat.

Zosja are a band that can transfer their technical abilities into a bunch of songs filled with life. Around the Sun is a modern cross-over album filled with vocal pyrotechnics, melancholy, fun, great licks and grooves.

Zosja:
Zosja El Rhazi: vocals
Lucas Meijers: guitar
Daniel van Dalen: drums, kalimba, percussion
Pieter Althuis: bass