{"id":31338,"date":"2026-02-01T00:11:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T08:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/?p=31338"},"modified":"2026-01-26T12:04:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T20:04:27","slug":"camille-kuulei-sallave-camilles-confessions-vol-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/camille-kuulei-sallave-camilles-confessions-vol-1\/","title":{"rendered":"CAMILLE KU\u2019ULEI SALLAVE: Camille\u2019s Confessions Vol. 1"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A beguiling stew of old-timey jazz, Polynesian, vaudeville, 1970s California country rock, contemporary folk, and likely a few other threads your loyal correspondent missed, San Diego singer Camille Ku\u2019ulei Sallave\u2019s debut is as charming as it is unconstrained by stylistic limitations\u2014or even expectations.<\/p>\n

To pick a song at random, \u201cBiscuit\u201d comes halfway through the album and opens in a straight-ahead jazz vein with piano, drums, bass, and tenor sax. Sallave jumps in with her strong soprano vocal. After the opening verse, she switches to a double-time delivery, never tripping as she runs through the near-staccato delivery. The male harmony vocals behind her add a weighty substance to the sheer fun of the passage. Tenor sax and piano then each take a few bars before there\u2019s an extended piano solo, followed by a lengthy instrumental section before Sallave again takes lead to the close. It\u2019s nearly as exhausting to pay close attention to as it must have been to perform.<\/p>\n

The opening track, \u201cAngels Share,\u201d has a vaudeville feel to it\u2014if the vaudeville show made a stop in the Sandwich Islands and picked up a few local musicians to fill out the company. Dueling guitars, banjos, or ukes chase each other around behind Sallave\u2019s occasionally half-spoken, mostly sung narrative, which itself floats above a Greek chorus of harmony and response vocals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the Fever Breaks\u201d is an up-tempo pop number with an infectious melody, played at breakneck speed with a great solo on electric guitar (no credits provided, but it\u2019s a gem). The conversational vocals that close out the song remind in spirit at least of vintage Southern gospel.<\/p>\n

Following that, \u201cSlippy Ice\u201d slows the pace down considerably and place\u2019s Sallave\u2019s singing voice firmly in the spotlight. Many singers possessed of a high register lack the complex harmonic overtones often found in a mezzo or alto vocalist, but Sallave is not only gifted with a rich sorprano but also has clearly worked at developing it. Her pacing, vocal control, the depth of her timbre, the confident delivery all speak to a singer of experience and vision in control of her native instrument.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s that amazingly supple voice, combined with her wide-ranging compositions, that are what hold this release together and give it its emotional punch.<\/p>\n

On \u201cLet\u2019s Meet the Sun,\u201d the song opens with a jangly guitar line that could have come from vintage Eagles or Fleetwood Mac, but once Sallave begins singing the music immediately becomes something that only she could have created. (And there\u2019s another superb guitar solo about halfway through, with a second at about the two-thirds mark.)<\/p>\n

The arrangements are as sophisticated as the singing\u2014check out the swirling layers of instrumentation coming in and out of focus on \u201cSouvenirs and Fire.\u201d The studio mix, too, is clean, the production superb.<\/p>\n

Vol. 2<\/em> can\u2019t arrive soon enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A beguiling stew of old-timey jazz, Polynesian, vaudeville, 1970s California country rock, contemporary folk, and likely a few other threads your loyal correspondent missed, San Diego singer Camille Ku\u2019ulei Sallave\u2019s debut is as charming as it is unconstrained by stylistic limitations\u2014or even expectations. To pick a song at random, \u201cBiscuit\u201d comes halfway through the album and opens in a straight-ahead jazz vein with piano, drums, bass, and tenor sax. Sallave jumps in with her strong soprano vocal. After the opening verse, she switches to a double-time delivery, never tripping as she runs through the near-staccato delivery. The male harmony vocals behind her add a weighty substance to the sheer fun of the passage. Tenor sax and piano then each take a few bars before there\u2019s an extended piano solo, followed by a lengthy instrumental section before Sallave again takes lead to the close. It\u2019s nearly as exhausting to pay close […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":31341,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cd-reviews"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31338"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31342,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31338\/revisions\/31342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}