"Enjoy this Day," the longest track, again penned
by Taylor and Winstone, encapsulates the zeitgeist of this special but
brief period in British jazz, evoking at various times the music of Mike Westbrook, Michael Garrick and Ian Carr—all
of whom featured Winstone's vocals on at least one of their albums—and
here Winstone introduces some of her remarkable wordless singing to be
found on Westbrook's underrated masterpiece Metropolis. An outstanding track which sandwiches dynamic arrangements with vocal and trumpet solos by Winstone and Kenny Wheeler, with still some room for a brief but powerful foray by Tony Levin on typically scintillating drums.
Alan
Skidmore's ethereal flute, accompanied, by piano and bass, heralds a
plangent opening to "Erebus (Son of Chaos)" slowly building into a high
octane number with strident, haunting brass ensemble passages, vocal
ululating improvisation, and on this track only, Gary Boyle on electric
guitar. The culmination of a repeated riff in the final passage of this
powerful composition perfectly typifies the writing skills of John
Surman at his best" ... allaboutjazz.com ...
Personnel: Norma Winstone: Voice; Henry Lowther: Trumpet, Flugelhorn
(Tracks: 1 to 4, 6 to 7), Kenny Wheeler: Trumpet, Flugelhorn (Tracks: 2
to 4); Alan Skidmore: Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Flute (Tracks 1
to 4, 7) Mike Osborne: Alto Saxophone, Clarinet (Tracks 2, 3, 4); Gary
Boyle: Guitar (Tracks 4); John Taylor: Piano, Electric Piano (Tracks 1
to 6); Art Themen: Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Flute, Bass
Clarinet (Tracks 1 to 5, 7); Chris Pyne: Trombone (Tracks 2 to 3, 4);
Malcolm Griffiths: Trombone (Tracks 1 to 4); Paul Rutherford: Trombone,
Euphonium (Tracks 1 to 4); Chris Laurence: Bass (Tracks: 1 to 4, 6, 7);
Tony Levin: Drums (Tracks: 1 to 4, 6); Frank Ricotti: Vibraphone (Tracks
1, 7)
"We are happy to introduce the excellent young singer and songwriter
Hilde Marie Kjersem with her first solo album. Neither a jazz album nor
your typical melancholy Nordic singer songwriter album, let´s say its
pop music with a twist, quite a few twists come to think of it, inviting
the listener to a dramatic, beautiful, mysterious, seductive, dark,
intricate and quite simply different sounding and fascinating musical
ride." ... RuneGrammofon
But A Killer is Kjersem's show, all eleven songs written by the
singer and demonstrating a wealth of ideas and breadth of scope. The
title track is gorgeous, where a layered choir is all that's needed to
support Kjersem's evocative vocal. "Midwest Country" is, indeed, an
Americana-centric song that still manages to feel somehow skewed, while
another solely vocal track, "Save Up," reflects a southern gospel
influence. Kjersem's voice is remarkably malleable—soft and warm on the
closing "Working Girl," where a lovely mix of Torbjørn Folke Zetterberg
banjo and Kjerstem's Fender Rhodes leads into a majestic ending;
understated on the electonica-centric "London Bridge"; and ethereal on
the dramatic "Marie Antoinette." She rarely lets loose, as she did more
consistently in performance, but it makes the rare occasion when she
does here far more effective... www.allaboutjazz.com
"This requires a keen ear, one that really has heard all kinds of jazz
for years. It requires a sharp mind, one that has learned jazz outside
of the formal educational system. Of course, we learned the basics of
music techniques at school, but we did not study the art of
improvisation. Jazz, being the product of the moment, must have
spontaneous creation." She goes on to explain its instructional
function, "how to create endlessly varying melodies and rhythms in a
particular idiom, using a given set of chords; how to fashion continuous
harmonic variations for a given melodic line in one or a multitude of
forms; and how to design combinations of melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic
variations for this spontaneous improvisational form we call jazz."...thestranger.com ...
