You can't win them all. Italy's Splasc(h) records has one of the finest tracks of any label in the business today. But as evidenced by this debut, even they miss now and then. For starters, this woman cannot sing in English. She has a big throaty voice that just swallows a lyric whole. But in her interpretive execution, she falters big time. The first problem is her accent; she is trying to overcome something that in her, anyway, cannot be overcome. It's not that she shouldn't attempt to interpret the English language; after all, a great song is a great song and along with the title track, there are many of them here. It's that she shouldn't suppress her Italian accent to do it. Each tune sounds overwrought, put to the limit of its ability to hold the voice. She sounds on every track like Björk trying to sing Kurt Weill. Surrounded by a crack band of Italy's finest jazz session musicians -- including guitarist Mauro Campobasso and the saxophone section of Maurizio Giammarco, Achille Succi, and Mauro Manzoni, as well as drummer Miro Marianio and bassist Luca Bulgarelli -- and playing a repertoire that includes Strayhorn, Ellington, Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, and Art Ronnell's "Willow Weep for Me," enunciation is terribly important. That aside, the band here is top-notch, swinging gently through each tune and providing a beautiful support beam for Finotti. The real issue is that this is a debut album. It doesn't work because she hasn't learned to make her accent work for her, and she can. In fact, it would be nice to hear more of it and less Carmen McCrae impressionism the next time out. Here's hoping. ~ Thom Jurek