IT was another scorching day in New York, but in his short-sleeve shirt, black jeans and snakeskin shoes, Dr. John, the piano-playing, politically assertive singer and songwriter from New Orleans, was quite comfortable.
(Chinen) Carmen Lundy (Friday through Sunday) Ms. Lundy, a soulful and assertive singer, comes here on the heels of some indirect accolades: she was one of the featured guests on Terri Lyne Carrington's "Mosaic Project" (Concord), which won a Grammy for best jazz vocal album.
As ever, Ursa Minor lives and dies by the effort of Michelle Casillas, an assertive lead singer and a broodingly earnest songwriter.
Ms. Robison has become a warmly assertive lead singer, and on the album's ballads, like "Divided" and "The Road You Take," she drills down on a grown-up romantic ambivalence, with expressive precision.
The three were all friends or fans of each other beforehand and on the whole, they've welcomed this new wave of incisive, assertive female singer-songwriters coming up alongside them.
"But when Libre charges into its arrangements, which unite three trombones, Dave Valentin's nimbly assertive flute, two singers and a sizzling rhythm section," Mr. Pareles wrote, "those categories are lost in the beat".
(Chinen) Kendra Shank Quartet (Friday) An assertive and open-minded jazz singer, Kendra Shank prizes group interplay.
In addition to Mr. Ahmed, the Either/Orchestra backed Alemayehu Eshete, a singer with an equally assertive but less transcendent style.
There's a slithering "Hard in da Paint" remix with the R&B singer Ciara, and an assertive, intricate version by the Cam'ron protégé Vado, but it's the original, uncomplicatedly rowdy, that's stickiest.
And Frankie J has plenty in common with that singer — schooled in R&B but not beholden to it, a light but assertive vocal tone and style agnosticism that allows him to sound comfortable no matter what the milieu.
It encourages a singer like Ms. Martin to break through the gap and make tellingly assertive gestures, as she did in a beautiful rendition of "What'll I Do?" Simply by bearing down on the title phrase, as if she were pleading to a friend for advice, she applied her stamp to a standard that everyone else interprets from a long-distance perspective.
