Yanofsky opened with a jazzy rendition of On the Sunny Side of
the Street. To hear her sing—her vocal acrobatics draw comparisons to
Ella Fitzgerald—is to assume that her handlers are shaving years off her
age for publicity purposes. But between songs, the Montreal
native—adorably clad in sequin shorts and bedazzled black Converse high
tops—spoke in an unmistakably teenaged cadence. “I’m so excited to be
here, especially because my album launched today—I’m stoked!” she cried
before launching into her first original song of the evening,
Cool My Heels. (On the album, her tunes stand up surprisingly well next
to classics like I Got Rhythm and Somewhere Over the
Rainbow.) Another new one, First Lady, is dedicated to
Fitzgerald: “She pretty much opened up, like, a whole new world for me!”
Yanofsky explained in introducing the song, before launching into a
soulful and breathtakingly executed melody.
Photos: Slaven Vlasic
