Choice Cut: Jennifer Hartswick is a Triple Threat on new song and album

Share this article

    Photo credit: Dani Barbieri

    She is an artist with the whole package, and with her new album, we expect the world is going to want to enjoy that package for all the beauty it brings. We’re talking about vocalist, trumpeter and composer Jennifer Hartswick and her brand new album Something in the Water, her fourth record as a leader and first for Christian McBride’s Mack Avenue Music Group imprint Brother Mister Productions. Co-written with guitarist and album producer Nick Cassarino, Something in the Water is brimming with humor and vulnerability. “We wanted to celebrate the human experience,” says the Nashville-based artist. “We wanted to write about all facets of love and life and loss and gain. There’s definitely an arc of someone’s life in this album.”

    She is an artist with the whole package, and with her new album, we expect the world is going to want to enjoy that package for all the beauty it brings. We’re talking about vocalist, trumpeter and composer Jennifer Hartswick and her brand new album Something in the Water, her fourth record as a leader and first for Christian McBride’s Mack Avenue Music Group imprint Brother Mister Productions. Co-written with guitarist and album producer Nick Cassarino, Something in the Water is brimming with humor and vulnerability. “We wanted to celebrate the human experience,” says the Nashville-based artist. “We wanted to write about all facets of love and life and loss and gain. There’s definitely an arc of someone’s life in this album.”

    Something in the Water came to life in Nashville following an impromptu writing retreat in New England. Hartswick and Cassarino spent a week and a half at a closed bed and breakfast in Vermont during the winter of 2021; there, they focused on composing the entire record in a controlled environment, with lyric input from songwriter Erin Boyd. “We’d write and cook and write and cook and laugh and cry and write and cook,” says Hartswick. “That was the purpose of the trip, to see if we could write an album.” And what an album it is. A gem from start to finish that should wow both jazz and soul music audiences.

    For our latest SoulTracks Choice Cut, we have plucked from this project the uber-soulful “For You,” a laid back jam that layers up the harmonies behind Hartswick’s expressive lead vocals. It feels like Chaka went into the studio with Patrice Rushen and dedided to let loose. We simply love it and know SoulTrackers will too.

    Check out “For You” below and then hear the rest of the fantastic Something in the Water, which we’ve added to the page. You’ll be hooked.

    SoulTracks Choice Cut
    Jennifer Hartswick – “For You”