Charmagne Tripp – Live at Parkville Sounds (EP Review)

In today’s review on Music Review World, we will explore the world of Charmagne Tripp. She is a Grammy-recognized independent artist creating soulful music inspired by the love of grown folks and good vibes. Her songs intend to tell stories of human connection—delivered through lyrics and melodies that feel both personal and universal, carried by the warmth of a friend and the power of a headliner.

In the span of her 25-year career, she has fronted award-winning bands, held international residencies, and recorded five albums, each offering a unique layer of artistry and deepening her connection with audiences around the world.

This time, she has decided to release an EP called ‘Live at Parkville Sounds’, doubling as her most personal recording to date. Long celebrated for her commanding stage presence and genuine connection with audiences, Charmagne had yet to fully capture that magic in a recorded format—until now.

It was recorded in one unforgettable night at the intimate Studio B at Parkville Sounds in Hartford, Connecticut with a live audience. This 6-track compilation preserves the elusive spark that makes her shows unforgettable: the breath between phrases, the unplanned audience reactions, and the electric energy that only happens when artist and audience are locked in together.

With soul-drenched vocals, dynamic arrangements, and the warmth of spontaneous connection, Live at Parkville Sounds offers listeners an unfiltered snapshot of Hartford’s vibrant music scene. Standout tracks like ‘Waiting For’ and ‘Humanity’ showcase her lyrical depth and emotional range, while ‘Cloud9’ delivers a dreamy, jazz-inspired lift. The result is more than just a recording—it’s an invitation to step inside the room and feel the performance as it happened.

If you’re already excited and the anticipation has built up, here’s the link to the release.

The release comes off as extremely inviting and enthralling right as the recording of the first track, ‘Waiting For’, begins. The bass and the keys create an atmosphere of dynamic build-up and tension that instantly ropes you in with a lot of motivic variation from the keys and the additional saxophone. It is calming, jazzy, soulful, but also intellectual. The tone of the main vocalist definitely fits right in within this genre, and the background vocalists stunningly compliment the rich tone of her voice. Even though this is a live recording, all the levels of the instruments within the track are not necessarily competing for a place, with everything blending well together. This song has a lot of interesting chord changes that accentuate the lyrics, with the percussion changing its syncopation according to the stamp in the song.

With a promising start, we drift into more of a jazzy and dramatic tune with ‘Like The Way’, providing a more R&B influenced structure within the pre-chorus and the melody of the lyrical stances sung. It is pretty standard, but the saxophone solo within the track definitely elevates it, keeping the standard of this recording up to the first track. The relationship between all aspects of instrumentation not only compliment each other but feed off of each other- improvs, breaks, bridges and various other compositional techniques to keep the audience engaged. It’s simply wonderful.

‘Read My Mind’ takes the listening journey of this EP into a more emotionally rich session with its existence, being both soulful and hopeful at the same time, mixing all kinds of emotional lows and highs within an extremely complex session. It’s just blissful at this point, as the EP builds up with just simply put: competent musicians having a wonderful, fruitful musical session with each other. I love how the standard of the tracks within the EP does not drop at all, in fact, it keeps getting better, with more phrases injected into each song with improvisation. ‘Baby Baby Please’ then takes you into a slightly sassier tone with the introduction of the bass in the beginning, with a lot of character and sassiness within the pauses of the notes. The vocals introduce the main format of the song, before exploding into a wonderful sequence with the other segments of instrumentation hugging the main sequence. It’s beautiful, almost reminiscent of some of Vikter Duplaix’s earlier works with the sensibility of a seasoned jazz player.

‘Cloud 9’ takes a break from the otherwise solemn-leaning tracks with a bit more positive and infectious energy, radiating sunshine with its style. It is almost disco influenced, mixed with jazz in itself. It’s very funky and very soulful, all while presenting a clean and pure message. I think it’s a song that doesn’t require much description except the word ‘beautiful’. It’s a positive arc, and it presents itself without being cheesy at all, due to the complexity of the instrumentation and the dynamics within the vocalist and the background vocalists.

Last but not least, the EP ends with the track ‘Humanity’, bearing a more serious and anthemic-tone within its introduction. It takes on a darker tone, with introspective lyrics that make you think. It’s a song that’s more than a vibe, making you think about the situations presented within its lyrics. It presents itself straightforward, laced with beautiful melodies, but completely switches up with the tempo and improvisation towards the end, perhaps mimicking the chaos of the world. I totally understand the format of this song as frankly, I’ve made one with a similar format. I will say this, though, that this track is way better in terms of the amount of technical proficiency within the track.

All in all, this presents itself as a delightful jazz-fusion album to listen to. It actually has a lot of fusion within the tracks, with lots of character and emotion infused into it. It’s on the higher echelon of art, objectively, from both a musicology and a music theory perspective. Hope to hear more from all of the artists involved in the recording.

SCORE / Outstanding: Live at Parkville Sounds is a wonderful album that transcends genres in wowing you with how intensely proficient all of the instrumentation and intent behind the album is. It’s not just nice to listen to, it makes you ponder, and stretches the potential of sound with the amount of improvisation and complex melodies within this release. Of course, we can’t ignore the wonderful vocals within the album as well.

[We rank singles, EPs, and albums on a scale of Poor, Mediocre, Good, Excellent, and Outstanding]

You can keep up with Charmagne on:

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or, her Official Website