I can’t remember exactly when I saw Ricki Derek for the first time, but I do know it was at Scat Jazz Lounge, the intimate and classy 17-year-old Sundance Square spot that Derek co-owns. The occasion was one of his popular Christmas concerts, replete with an orchestra and Rat Pack-style comedy bits. These shows have long since become part of the holidays in Fort Worth for my wife and me and no doubt countless others.
Though these winter seasonal runs might arguably be what he is best known for, Derek performs year-round in various formats, whether as the Ricki Derek Big Band, with his Vegas Six, or his Quartet of Four. For the uninitiated, his act lies somewhere between Rat Pack revivalist, comedian, and lounge singer, and I don’t mean the last as a pejorative. But as his new album shows, he is capable of taking the lounge vibe into some interesting directions.
Derek’s self-titled debut LP from 2008 was a slight departure from his usual Sinatra-style classics, and he used his big band to venture out and cover Duran Duran and Modern English but stay safely within the confines of the genre he so deftly recreates from night to night onstage. Four years later, he offered Here’s to Christmas, which covers a lot of the same ground as his annual Yuletide concerts. Now, 12 years later, Derek is finally dropping his third record.
The seeds for Reprised were planted back in 2022, when Derek put out three separate black-and-white videos of live performances of some of the songs that would eventually make it onto the new LP. Filmed at the Scat, the vids were directed by comedian Nick Gibbons, who has been working with Derek since the latter’s days performing at The Cavern, a now-defunct bar off Lower Greenville in Dallas. These stripped-down lounge versions of songs by Amy Winehouse, Dolly Parton, and The Fixx also feature comedic sketches, providing Derek with the new direction he would eventually take in the studio.
The nine-song Reprised also includes covers of artists such as The Go-Go’s, The Lemonheads, and Thompson Twins, to name a few. Heading into the studio to record a Blondie track may not sound like a serious endeavor, but Derek said it was “so fulfilling to come in with a sketch and flesh [the tunes] out as artists with what we thought would sound cool while trying to keep it very minimal.”
This sentiment holds true throughout Reprised. As you make your way through the album, there is something unique to the translation of these pop tunes that proves Derek has a penchant for reimagining more than the classic Sinatra Songbook.
Unlike schmaltzy artists like Richard Cheese, who wears the title of lounge singer as more of a bit, Derek presents these songs in earnest, and he and his talented band add some jazz and lounge-oriented musicality that really liven things up. It’s honestly hard to pick a favorite, but the Men at Work tune “Overkill” certainly sticks out, with its melancholy overtones, and the closer, Blind Melon’s “No Rain,” pushes this album and Ricki Derek as an artist into new ground — this ’90s radio staple suddenly seems like it has always been a jazz song.
Vinyl copies of Reprised are available at Good Records in Dallas and at Derek’s album release show Thursday at the Scat.
Ricki Derek
8pm Thu at Scat Jazz Lounge, 111 W 4th St, FW. 817-870-9100.
