Monday, I was at a table at The Living Room with my friend John, waiting
for Jonatha Brooke and her band to take the stage.  The place was
pretty crowded and a woman comes over to the table, looks at the
remaining empty chair and asks if we mind if she sits there.  "Not at
all," I said.

John and I continue to talk and at one point I mentioned my column here
in Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn.  A very short time after that, the
woman at our table asks me if I'm a music writer.  I say that I am, and
then she hands me CD; her CD.  We talk a bit.  I learn her name is
Eleanor and that she uses just her first name professionally.  It turns
out that she knows one of John's relatives.  I tell Eleanor that I'll
listen to her CD.  Then Jonatha Brooke comes to the stage and starts
her excellent and rocking show.  When the show ends, John, Eleanor
and I all go our separate ways.

When I got home Monday night, I put Eleanor's CD, which is titled Us,
into my computer and listened to it.  It's just an EP with four tracks.  But
there's a lot to like on Us.  Eleanor's voice is smooth and quite
melodic.  Her songs are jazz based and remind me just a bit of Sasha
Dobson's earlier songs.  The mood on Us is mellow, but an interesting
form of mellow.

Eleanor will be playing a few dates in Brooklyn and Manhattan starting
towards the end of August, and I plan on following up on
her.

(Photo by Todd Chalfant)

 –Eliot Wagner