Anthony Strong

A couple of years back, Jamie Cullum started a small renaissance of swinging crooner and impressively demonstrated what singers like Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole have also always been: pop. Anthony Strong also swings and does so very appealingly. He studied jazz piano and started at the side of Michael Bolton and Jocelyn Brown, he was on various television shows and accompanied Adrien Brody on piano for a Super Bowl commercial. Strong’s debut album “Guaranteed!” proved that he is an independent artist, a singer with a sense for rhythm and dynamics, as well as an excellent songwriter. In a fascinating, light and nonchalant manner, he draws the bow from the forties to present day, both on record and live. And he does this with his own compositions as well as with interpretations of standards—for example when he sharply increases the tempo of Irving Berlin’s “Cheek to cheek” and makes the classic song sound as if it had been written yesterday. To make it short: This man has a voice!