Sitting on the lawn of a beautiful vineyard and listening to the smooth jazz-swing music of Rachael &Vilray was the perfect way to spend a hot summer afternoon, one made only better by the fact that the show was the first live music that many of us had experienced since the COVID-19 lockdown in early March. The duo performed a matinee show at the lovely Black Birch Vineyard on July 28th located in the tiny western Massachusetts town of Hatfield. The show, the first of two they performed on this day, followed strict CDC safety guidelines that included social distancing, mask-wearing when moving about and, the selling of a very limited amount of tickets.
The day started with a brief set from singer-songwriter Taylor Ashton that featured material off his new album, “The Romantic.” This is an excellent work that had the misfortune of being released at the onset of the pandemic and as a result, has not received the attention that it deserves. Alternating between guitar and banjo, Ashton played a selection of his pop-folk tunes like the gorgeous “F.L.Y” and in the process nicely paved the way for Rachael & Vilray.
For those not familiar with the duo, Rachael is Rachael Price the vocal powerhouse who fronts the soulful- pop band Lake Street Dive and Vilray is a composer, guitarist and singer. The pair met in 2003 when they were students at the New England Conservatory of Music and discovered they shared a love of the jazz, pop, and Tin Pan Alley songs from the 1930s and ’40s. However, they didn’t start working together until 2015 and released their self-titled debut in 2019.
After acknowledging how great it was to be playing together again, the pair opened their set with the jaunty “Fairy Tales” a song recorded by Ella Fitzgerald and the Mills Brothers in 1949. The vintage sound of this tune perfectly set the tone for Rachael & Vilray’s set which featured material off their album as well as a few covers and songs from Vilray’s solo work. Vilray writes songs that musically sound like they are from a bygone era yet lyrically are very contemporary and sometimes even humorous.
Beyond their timeless sound what makes the music of Rachael & Vilray stand out is their incredible vocals. Accompanied only by Vilray’s Telecaster, their voices compliment each other beautifully on “Do Friends Fall in Love?” (which also features some nice whistling from Vilray) and “Let’s Make Love on the Plane.” Price, who is a trained jazz vocalist, showed off her expressive voice on the beautiful ballad, “I Can’t Go to Sleep “and also let loose with some impressive scatting throughout the set.
There’s a lot of storytelling at a Rachael & Vilray show, both in Vilray’s songs and the duo’s introductions to the material and at this show talk of the pandemic loomed largely. Vilray did some writing during quarantine mostly, and he introduced “Time to Write a Song” by explaining it was about having plenty of time to write but not being able too. He also shared the story of washing his clothes in the bathtub of his New York apartment during lockdown before playing ”The Laundromat Swing.” A swinging tune with the snappy line “ every woman wants a man that smells amazin.’”
Before launching into, “Treat Me Better,” Price talked of her time in quarantine saying she and her husband ( opener Taylor Ashton) learned a lot about each other during this experience and she joked how she would take a walk to him a break. Some other highlights were “At Your Mother’s House,” which they called one of the few angry jazz songs and “Just Two” which was briefly interrupted by the wind blowing down the umbrellas that covered the duo.
Rachael & Vilray closed their set with “She’s Not Ready,” a song that Price referred to as a “shouty song” because it featured a call and response with the audience. They encored with a cover of the old song, “Oh Johnny,” and while the crowd was limited in size they weren’t lacking in enthusiasm at they yelled “Oh Johnny” along with Price. She was clearly having a great time being back on stage and the audience equally enjoyed hearing some live music again. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day.
