GENTLE WATERS

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

There is something oceanic about the music of singer-songwriter Alana Davis, 23. Her enchanting debut album, Blame It on Me (Elektra), has a pacific calm to it, undulating with soft folk, light jazz and warm R. and B., and yet, beneath the serene surface, one senses a depth, a power, precious things hidden away like sunken treasure ships. In concert one gets more of a glimpse: Davis has a sensuous, sliding alto, young and vibrant, but infused with old, smoky blues. She is a major new talent.

Davis, the daughter of a black father (jazz pianist Walter Davis Jr.) and a white mother (part-time jazz singer Anna Schonfield), says she never fit in with any particular racial group when she was growing up in New York City's arty Greenwich Village. "I identify with both and neither at the same time," she says. "I figure I exist as an eraser for the lines that are drawn between the races."

Her music works in much the same way. On 32 Flavors, she covers a song by punk-folk singer Ani DiFranco, lending it an upbeat, pop-oriented grace. On the title track, Davis coasts into a relaxed jazz-jam mode. And then on Turtle, her voice arches above the chorus, R.-and-B. diva-like, aching with emotion. Davis will no doubt draw comparisons to acts from various genres--you can hear Joni Mitchell, Tracy Chapman and even Stevie Wonder churning inside her songs. But like most true talents, she eludes direct matches. The gentle waves of her music beat against the shore, recede and then wash back again.

--C.J.F.