Caramanica uses a scene-setter lede to take us inside "Zebulon", the small Brooklyn cafe where Ms. Miranda last performed. He goes beyond the visual, letting us know what it was like to be there, in order to tell the reader more than a simple photograph would. He describes the mood of the audience, the lighting, and the cramped but cozy feeling you might associate with a small urban cafe.
Caramanica then spends much of the article describing Miranda's music. This is never any easy task- describing with words what a certain song sounds like, and Caramanica primarily does this in by far the easiest way possible, which is draw comparisions. In one sentence alone, Miranda is compared to Feist, Cat Power, and Norah Jones, all well-known female artists.
However, like many music critics, Caramanica also attempts to find his own adjectives to describe the sounds he's hearing. This can often be very hit or miss, depending on how much the words make sense to the reader from a musical standpoint, and how abstract the description becomes. Here's an example from the article: "Ms. Miranda's voice was smoky and laserlike..."
"Smoky" is a pretty safe choice, it being a favorite among all critics, whether describing vocals, cheese, wine, or atmosphere. "Laserlike" is a little bit out of there, and Caramanica is taking a gamble by hoping that the word will conjure up the same meaning for his readers as it did for him when he was listening to Ms. Miranda sing. Personally, it doesn't do anything for me.
Your critique is laserlike. It cuts precisely, separating even adjective from noun to show how Caramanica writes.
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