• Nikki Yanofsky Ella Of Thee I Swing
• Nikki Yanofsky Ella Of Thee I Swing Rar Files
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With a little help from my friends Mmm Get high with a little help from my friends Mmm Gonna to try with a little help from my friends Do you need anybody? I need somebody to love Could it be anybody?

NIKKI YANOFSKY was up early, and already on. “Mee-ee-ee-ee,” she sang one morning last month, warming up in a tiny dressing room of a Manhattan television studio. A makeup artist leaned in to apply some last-minute touches, and she paused, eyeing her reflection. “You know how everyone says, ‘I’m a morning person,’ or ‘I’m a night person’?” she chirped. “I’m just a person.” Her parents, seated on either side of her, smiled.

Ms. Yanofsky, a 16-year-old jazz-pop singer from Montreal, was about to perform on WPIX’s “Morning News one of three such appearances that day. With her small frame, delicate features and bright-eyed demeanor, she seemed even younger than her years, but also like a seasoned professional. She wore a black blazer over a white T-shirt and leather pants, crediting the look to Dsquared2, the same designers who put her in a red silk-crepe cocktail dress for the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics. It was her prepossessing turn on that global stage, belting a dramatically embellished “O Canada,” that effectively served as her debutante ball. (She was also the voice behind the Vancouver Games’ theme song, “I Believe.” )

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• After four packed concerts at the 2007 Montreal Jazz Festival, Nikki Yanofsky returned, by popular demand, to Place des Arts to reprise her tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, entitled Ella. Of Thee I Swing.
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“Nikki” (Decca), her new album, pursues a similar agenda of maximum exposure. Co-produced by Jesse Harris and Phil Ramone, whose track record includes not only late-period Sinatra and Tony Bennett but also blockbuster albums by Paul Simon and Billy Joel, it’s a mélange of songbook standards and adult-contemporary-leaning originals, with a special focus on Ms. Yanofsky’s canny mimicry of Ella Fitzgerald. The album’s blend of ardent nostalgia and crossover ambition says something about the shifting center of Ms. Yanofsky’s talent and, just as clearly, highlights some tricky distinctions between the practice and the perception of jazz singing, especially where commercial interests are involved.

“This is very much a jazz record, and that’s how we’re positioning it, though there are elements of her songwriting that point in a new direction,” said Christopher Roberts, chairman of the Decca Label Group. “We’ll follow her where it goes. There’s no road map we have dictated.”

He acknowledged that her precocious talent would appeal to an older demographic: “The first circle that we want to get to is a jazz circle, then a wider adult audience and then, building on that success, maybe get to a younger audience.”

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These days, when jazz vocals succeed on a pop scale, there’s often a ghost lurking in the background: picture Michael Bublé riffing on Frank Sinatra, or Madeleine Peyroux summoning Billie Holiday, or even Natalie Cole’s beyond-the-grave duets with her father, Nat. In the case of Ms. Yanofsky, the Fitzgerald affinity runs deep. It formed the basis of her appeal four years ago, when she grabbed headlines at the Montreal International Jazz Festival. It was the reason for her inclusion on “We All Love Ella” (Verve), a 2007 compilation, and the focus of her 2008 debut, “Ella ... Of Thee I Swing,” released on A440, a label established by her father, Richard Yanofsky.

Inevitably too it was a talking point at WPIX, the first question asked. Ms. Yanofsky fielded it with reflexive enthusiasm, but her performance steered clear of that reference entirely. What she sang instead was “Over the Rainbow” in a style that suggested a Broadway show-stopper with flickering traces of R&B.

“I don’t consider myself a jazz singer,” Ms. Yanofsky said over breakfast with her parents after leaving the studio. “I just consider myself a singer. Because if I considered myself just a jazz singer, then I wouldn’t be allowed to do all those little inflections, things that I just want to do naturally. So I’m shooting myself in the foot, missing out on other genres that could help me grow as an artist.”

She cited the pop and soul elements on “Nikki” to underscore her point.

“It’s all about versatility,” she said. “And the thing is, I’m like that in everything. One day I decide I want to be a hippie, the next day I decide I want to be a rocker.”

Ms. Yanofsky’s relationship to jazz is at once evocative and evasive. She embraces its accoutrements — notably scat singing, the wordless high-wire act that was a Fitzgerald specialty — with period fidelity, as if donning a costume or inhabiting a role. “Nikki” opens with a brassy saunter through “Take the ‘A’ Train,” in high Fitzgerald fashion; it also features an “I Got Rhythm” with room for scat heroics, and “You’ll Have To Swing It (Mr. Paganini),” a Fitzgerald vehicle par excellence. Then there’s “First Lady,” a torpid original that name-checks its inspiration outright: “I feel compelled to thank you/Dear Ella.”

For now her forays into pop are generically versatile, in the manner of a middle-of-the-road contestant. To see her in concert — as on a “Live in Montreal” PBS special, due out on DVD next month — is to wait for the crackle of her better jazz moments.

“She’s got charms and chops, albeit amazing but imitative chops, and she does have professional poise on stage,” said Michael Bourne, the host of “Singers Unlimited” on WBGO-FM, the Newark jazz station, which featured her on a gala last year. “I look forward to hearing the promise of Nikki’s chops as she grows up and grows into some true artistry.”

By implying that jazz poses a stylistic limitation, Ms. Yanofsky seems out of step with contemporary currents in jazz singing, a discipline that has been moving toward openness and flexibility.

“There was a period where jazz singing really did become more conservative,” said Dominique Eade, a veteran of the field. “But I feel like this strong and informed and creative sensibility, from young singers of many persuasions, is resounding in the culture now.”

A longtime faculty member at the New England Conservatory in Boston, Ms. Eade has mentored more than a few impressive newcomers, including Jo Lawry, Sara Serpa and Julie Hardy. The new aesthetic might best be represented by “In a Dream” (ObliqSound), an album released last year by Gretchen Parlato, who sings in an ethereal, wakeful style, informed by the harmonic advances of post-1960s jazz and the luminous aspects of Brazilian music.

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Nikki Yanofsky Ella Of Thee I Swing

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This situation wasn’t so different 10 years ago, when prominent jazz singers fell roughly into two camps: restless hybridizers, like Cassandra Wilson, and high-polish classicists, like Diana Krall. That era even had its Nikki Yanofsky in Jane Monheit, whose dark curls and earnest comportment accompanied a pristinely articulated style. “She sings and acts a great deal like a sexy, young, white Ella Fitzgerald,” David Hajdu wrote of Ms. Monheit then in The New York Times Magazine.

An important change over the last decade has been the arrival of Norah Jones, a singer of jazz instinct but country-folk inclinations. It hardly seems a coincidence that Ms. Yanofsky wrote most of the originals on her album with Mr. Harris, who wrote “Don’t Know Why,” Ms. Jones’s breakout hit.

“For whatever Nikki lacked in years, she lacked nothing in confidence and enthusiasm,” Mr. Harris said, adding that their collaboration (also with the Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith), yielded several songs a day: wistful ballads, like “For Another Day,” and Motown-flavored fare, like “Cool My Heels.”

Mr. Ramone, the producer, said that he had encouraged Ms. Yanofsky’s songwriting as a way to extend her career. “Once you get past the novelty, it’s over,” he said, referring to her scat singing. “You have to run with those shoes, and it has to be good.”

At breakfast similar concerns were cited by her parents, Richard and Elyssa Yanofsky, who double as their daughter’s managerial team. “The last thing I want to be is a stupid pet trick,” Mr. Yanofsky said. An amateur keyboardist, he recognized his daughter’s talent early. “I knew she had perfect pitch towards the age of 2 or 3 years old,” he said.

“But we weren’t thinking about a career then,” Elyssa said.

“No, of course not,” Richard replied. “That’s preposterous.” Nikki interjected: “Yeah, they never, ever, ever pushed me, which is amazing. They just supported me. I always said, ‘I want to be a singer, I want to be a singer.’ ”

Her father added: “The whole thing was so organic. Nothing was planned, it just happened naturally. I had a cover band and we took her out on a couple of gigs.”

Still, Nikki’s debut, at 11 — singing Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” with that band — was seen by both parents as a threshold. “I said to Elyssa, ‘After tonight, everything’s going to be different for her,’ ” Mr. Yanofsky said.

André Ménard, the artistic director of the Montreal Jazz Festival, saw Ms. Yanofsky perform with her father’s band not long afterward in a local club.

Nikki Yanofsky Ella Of Thee I Swing Rar Files

“I heard this remarkable voice, where it was almost uncanny, bizarre to hear what she seemed to be channeling,” he recalled. “She was 12, but she looked 9. So I met her parents and said we should find her a place to play in our free program. And the father rose to the occasion. They mounted this very big show for her, way beyond the budget. She made all the national media that night.”

After breakfast there was time to kill before the next Midtown appearance, on “Better,” a program on the female-targeted Meredith Network. So Ms. Yanofsky went on a mission to find Converse sneakers in a particular shade of green. After some persistent sales-clerk questioning by her mother, they lucked into a pair. Nikki tried them on, uploaded a picture to Twitter and declared that she would be wearing them during the forthcoming segment. “I should be endorsed by Converse,” she said.

The “Better” appearance, a straightforward interview, went smoothly. Audra Lowe, the host, didn’t even mention Ella Fitzgerald until a minute and a half in, and when she did, Ms. Yanofsky struck the perfect balance of deference and distance.

“The covers, you hear my influences and you know who inspired me, and then you go to the originals, all of which I co-wrote, and you kind of hear how they inspired me,” she said, repeating a line from earlier. “You kind of get to know me through the music.”

Correction: May 16, 2010

Nikki Yanofsky Ella Of Thee I Swing Rar File Download

An article last Sunday about the jazz-pop singer Nikki Yanofsky omitted one of the producers of her latest album. Besides Phil Ramone, “Nikki” was also produced by Jesse Harris.