Baby Rose played Blue Note (Show 2)

After a scheduling conflict caused her to postpone her shows, Baby Rose finally made it to Blue Note in New York for four sets in two days.

Over the past few years, we've seen an influx of artists who are championing the soulful R&B croon that was booming out of Britain nearly twenty years ago. As tends to be the case with retromania, the two decade mark seems to be the signifier for a revival of the genre that saw the rise of the likes of Amy Winehouse, Duffy, and Adele and now the legion of fans who grew up under their charm are making records of their own. On her most recent album Yearnalism, the artist Baby Rose has emerged as one of the year's sharpest talents, pushing her husky vocals to the max while swinging jazz grooves allow her to send her voice to staggering heights. For her second set of the night at the legendary Blue Note, Rose made her way down the staircase, through the crowd, and onto the stage, strutting her stuff, while belting "Feeling Good" to make an entrance that would immediately set the bar at a remarkably impressive height from which she'd deliver her show for the next hour while guests sipped cocktails and clapped along to her booming tracks. Throughout the night, Rose's deep, sultry rasp added such volume and texture to her tracks, making them feel embossed against her band's lush, deep grooves that swung low and swampy, giving each song the proper weight to match her almighty vocals. Between songs, she was quite engaged with the crowd, playing pre-recorded messages that anonymous fans had sent to a hotline before the shows, each one expressing their recent yearnings, allowing her to enhance the themes of the night. Working the audience, she polled the people up front on whether you could remain friends after a breakup (it was an overall no) before hitting us with "Friends Again." Pumping up the mood and the beat, the band swooped in with "Better" and had the whole room bouncing with joy, everyone grooving along with perfect flow style. Showcasing such a strong command throughout the night, Rose was poised and in control, her bravado a true force that held the room's attention from the moment she opened her mouth until the closing notes of the night met their final crash. In fact throughout the night it was astounding to watch a voice of that magnitude and depth come to life from the person on stage, that's not an insult, but rather the utmost compliment as to how she could conjure up that much power and unleash such a presence all under her captivating spell. As she closed out the night, Rose dipped into the crowd and made her way all the way to the front of the bar as she belted it out one last time, her soothing and reinforcing neo-soul sound grounding the night and sending us off with a final shot of her all-out wonder.