Above : Australian jazz singer Hetty Kate
The Australian singer Hetty Kate lives in Paris, and performs regularly in a number of European countries, returning to Australia from time to time for various gigs around the country. I heard her performing on two occasions at The Lounge in Chatswood in 2024 and 2025, where I was mightily impressed by her unique artistry. This is the first of her four-album project Jazz in Four Seasons dedicated to the seasons in a calendar year. She’s in the process of exploring those seasons across different cities and cultures, recording in different continents.
Because referring to her professional surname “Kate” could be confusing to some readers, as “Kate” is a well-known christian name, I’m going to suspend a normal convention, and use her actual christian name Hetty throughout. This album celebrates Spring, which she describes as “the most hopeful and capricious of seasons”. It was recorded in Prague in 2025 with a strong band of beautiful Czech musicians, including Libor Šmoldas (guitar), Jiří Levíček (piano), Tomáš Baroš (double bass), & Tomáš Hobzek (drums/percussion).
From the opening track Soon It’s Gonna Rain, Hetty’s sophistication as a singer is to the fore. This tune, from the 2000 American musical romantic comedy The Fantasticks, is usually done in the straight-ahead time signature of 4/4. Here Hetty has created an exceedingly interesting version, done in the unusual time signature of 5/4. It affords her the opportunity to show how well she can handle a tune with unusual accents and displacement of the beats in each bar. It reveals her ability to create vehicles with a degree of difficulty which serve to illustrate her virtuosity as a vocalist. Only a jazz singer with serious vocal technique expedites this sort of thing successfully.
It’s not for nothing that, in her 2024 performance at The Lounge, she presented innovative versions of two standards, normally done in 4/4: Cry Me a River, which she did in 7/4, that is, with an unusual seven beats to the bar; and the Leslie Bricusse/Anthony Newley tune Pure Imagination, which she did in the difficult time signature of 5/4. On the new album not only is Soon It’s Gonna Rain in 5/4, but her version of the Rodgers & Hammerstein standard It Might as well be Spring, emulates a similar approach, as it’s in 7/4. Hetty says “it’s a little bit tricky to catch as the clave alternates in the intro, and also in the same repeated motif at the end – instead of staying in the same 7/4 rhythm as it did in Cry Me A River”. Listening to how she polishes off with aplomb such difficult creations, I can only marvel at her adventurousness and chutzpah.
The second tune on the album, A Flower is a Lovesome Thing, one of Billy Strayhorn’s loveliest works, with music and lyrics by him, is a tour de force for two of the accompanists, pianist Levíček and bassist Baroš. I’m informed that interestingly the piano intro played by Levíček here is actually a Duke Ellington composition entitled A Single Petal of a Rose. Hearing this track, we know immediately we’re in the company of superior musicians at the top of their form, doing everything right.
Hetty underlines her serious jazz credentials through the much-recorded tune Lady Bird, written by the African American jazz pianist Tadd Dameron, whom Hetty has said is her favourite composer. This was arranged by the French saxophonist Jon Boutellier. It features a very hip written wordless vocal in unison with piano which is repeated and separated by drum solos, with excellent piano and guitar improvisations to round off a thrilling version.
The album proceeds with Bein’ Green (also known as It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green), a song written by Joe Raposo, and originally performed by Jim Henson and his puppet creation Kermit the Frog.
A particular highlight is Hetty’s combination of two compositions which she segues into each other: Another Spring, written by the Dutch-American composer Albert Van Dam and April Fooled Me, a composition by the great American composer Jerome Kern which was unearthed ten years after his death in 1945, to which his friend, the lyricist Dorothy Fields, posthumously added lyrics. The perceptive lyrics in both works are sung beautifully by Hetty, here sounding at her best on this exquisite track.
It Looks Like Rain in Cherry Blossom Lane is a somewhat quirky version of a song which dates back to 1937. Hetty is accompanied here by the duo of pianist Levíček, and drummer Hobzek using brushes. It has a rather old-fashioned feel, but is extremely effective, with a strong four-to-the-bar rhythm.
In more familiar jazz territory Hetty does I Like The Sunrise, the only vocal in Duke Ellington’s famous Liberian Suite, which was originally recorded by the Ellington orchestra in 1947. Interestingly, Hetty’s version features a guest musician Rob Millett playing the cimbalom, a large, trapezoidal stringed instrument belonging to the hammered dulcimer family, primarily associated with Eastern European folk music.
Inchworm, a children’s song written by the American composer Frank Loesser was originally performed by Danny Kaye in the 1952 film Hans Christian Anderson. Hetty’s version is arranged by the American saxophonist/educator and Paris resident Rick Margitza. Loesser wrote it as a contrapuntal duet, that is to say, combining two melodies to be played simultaneously so that they weave together harmoniously. Hetty pays tribute to it by beautifully doubletracking her voice. Once again a fascinating track, Inchworm is in three, or 6/4 if you like, before going into a 5/4 section over which Hetty sings a soaring wordless vocal, before it reverts to 6/4 for a ruminative guitar solo from Šmoldas. The wordless vocal section is repeated but this time, interestingly, it’s in 6/4 rather than the earlier 5/4, before Hetty repeats the theme and takes the tune out.
We’re told that the composition Lesní Studánka (Crystal Spring), written by guitarist Šmoldas, is a tribute to a poem Lesní Studánka (The Forest Spring) by Josef Václav Sládek, first published in his 1894 children’s poetry collection. Apparently this poem remains a cherished part of Czech culture and is still taught in schools today. Václav Z J Pinkava translated the poem into English, and Hetty has adapted his words to fit the music. This track features the strong, meaty sound of another guest, the violinist Jan Bradač.
The penultimate track, Dave Brubeck’s lovely composition Strange Meadowlark, is a reminder of his classic 1959 album Time Out, the first jazz album to sell over a million copies. Until I heard Hetty sing this tune at The Lounge I was not aware that it had lyrics, which were added to the melody in later years by Brubeck’s wife Iola Brubeck. Hetty takes this at a bright clip, and the Czech flautist Robert Fischmann, a guest on this track, provides a memorable solo.
Hetty concludes her album with Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most, which I know as one of the great ballads, courtesy of singers such as Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. Written in 1955 this is perhaps the best-known of songs with lyrics by Fran Landesman and music by Tommy Wolf. Typically Hetty chooses not to sing it as a ballad. Instead, in line with her propensity for an original take, she makes the tune her own by adopting a relatively gentle rock time-feel while at the same time allowing enough space to ensure that the song’s great lyrics are not rushed.
For a listener who believes that life is an education, this album for me is manna from heaven. I cannot speak too highly of it; I’ve found that every track without exception is full of profound musical interest. It’s a five-star album if ever I’ve heard one, and I trust it will be celebrated around the world, and hopefully in Australia, as a major achievement.
