Concert Review: Veronica Swift in Buffalo

Kleinhans Music Hall February 28, 2024

Veronica Swift, Feb 28, 2024 Kleinhans Music Hall. Images © Sara Heidegger

Sixty degree temperatures gave way to powerful, gusting winds Wednesday night carrying Veronica Swift and her band into Buffalo’s Kleinhans Music Hall’s Mary Seaton Room with a rock and roll energy that, at times, seemed to channel the late Freddie Mercury.

Swift is a child prodigy and a precocious talent. She is the daughter of renowned jazz pianist Hod O’Brien and singer Stephanie Nakasian and she began performing and recording at nine years old. She said, “I grew up immersed in the culture of jazz music, blessed to have had some of the greats as mentors, and I felt a deep familial duty to uphold that tradition.”

Swift describes her self-titled release, Veronica Swift (2023) as “transgenre;” it includes traditional jazz, rock, funk, and opera, including Juliet’s “Je veux vivre” aria from Charles Gounod’s “Romeo and Juliet” (1867), performed as if it was at the Hot Club of France.

Wednesday night’s raucous concert with her accomplished, transgenre band including Carey Frank (keyboards…