Denise Donatelli Returns with Take My Breath Away: A Radiant Jazz Statement of Resilience and Renewal

There’s a certain kind of grace that only arrives when an artist has lived inside the music long enough for it to start telling the truth back. On Take My Breath Away, multi-GRAMMY-nominated vocalist Denise Donatelli returns with a recording that feels both celebratory and quietly fearless—an expansive set where contemporary songwriting, Brazilian textures, intimate balladry, and her signature jazz sensibility coexist without strain. Long admired for her warm, expressive tone and interpretive depth, Donatelli sounds completely at home here, shaping each lyric with the kind of emotional precision that doesn’t call attention to itself, yet lingers long after the final note.

Her story has always been rooted in musicianship. Donatelli’s journey began in rural Allentown, Pennsylvania, where classical piano training started at the age of four and followed her through high school.

With musically inclined parents—and who kept the house stocked with jazz records through Columbia and Capitol music clubs—she grew up absorbing the language of the greats before she ever stepped into the spotlight. After relocating to Atlanta, Georgia, she turned to jazz singing professionally, honing her craft night after night with a jazz trio at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. Los Angeles came next, and with it, a natural landing in a community of respected musicians who recognised what she brought: a vocalist with technique, taste, and a storyteller’s instinct.

That same artistry has travelled far beyond the stage. Donatelli’s work has crossed into television—performing on The Simpsons and appearing in promos for Frasier and Turner Classic Movies—alongside on-camera roles in national and international commercials for brands including CNN, Hyundai, Lexus and Mercedes-Benz. Yet at her core, she remains a live artist: performing nationally and internationally at leading jazz festivals, venues and universities, where she also shares her knowledge through jazz vocal masterclasses.

As a Savant Records artist, Donatelli’s last three recordings—Find a Heart (2015), Soul Shadows (2012) and When Lights are Low (2010)—collectively earned four GRAMMY® nominations, including three for Best Jazz Vocal Album and one for Best Arrangement. Earlier releases What Lies Within (2008) and In the Company of Friends (2005) further established her as a vocalist with range and staying power, while her presence on GRAMMY® winner Bill Cunliffe’s projects That Time of Year (2011) and Bachanalia (2017) underscored her ability to elevate any musical setting. Recognition has followed consistently: in 2012 she was honoured as Jazz Vocalist of the Year by The Los Angeles Jazz Society—whose voting advisors included Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones and Johnny Mandel—and she placed in DownBeat Magazine’s Critics Poll for five consecutive years in the Female Rising Star and Best Female Vocalist categories.

On Take My Breath Away, Donatelli once again joins forces with longtime collaborator, pianist and arranger Geoffrey Keezer. His imaginative settings give the album its elegant architecture—never overpowering, always responsive—creating space for Donatelli to do what she does best: translate feeling into phrasing, and phrasing into something like confession.

A record this nuanced doesn’t happen in isolation, and Donatelli is clear in her acknowledgements that Take My Breath Away is the result of deep musical trust. She offers heartfelt gratitude to Geoffrey Keezer—not only as arranger and producer, but as a longtime friend whose GRAMMY®-winning brilliance, she notes, continues to inspire her. She also shines a light on the “core” band and the wider circle of musicians who helped shape the album’s sound, praising their artistry, generosity and the joy they brought into the room. Beyond the performances, Donatelli extends appreciation to the team behind the glass—those responsible for recording, mastering and immersive mixing—recognising the craft that helped translate these sessions into a finished work that feels as warm and immediate as the performances themselves. The through-line in her thanks is unmistakable: this was a communal creation, built by people who listened closely to one another.

The album’s emotional weight is inseparable from its timeline. The tracks were originally recorded in May 2024 at Bunker Studios in Brooklyn, New York—sessions filled with momentum and promise. But when Donatelli returned home to Los Angeles, a mammogram and biopsy confirmed breast cancer, and the project was forced into pause as she underwent treatment throughout the following year. The “all clear” didn’t just allow her to return to the studio—it reframed the entire record. What might have been “simply” a new chapter in an already acclaimed catalogue became something more intimate: a statement of survival, gratitude and renewed love of life.

That context doesn’t turn Take My Breath Away into a sombre listen—if anything, it makes the album glow. There’s a palpable sense of presence in Donatelli’s delivery, as though every line is being sung from the other side of a difficult threshold. It’s the sound of an artist returning not just with her voice intact, but with her perspective sharpened—offering a recording that feels personal, expansive, and quietly triumphant in the way it honours the simple miracle of being able to make music at all.