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| 5.180 Ft
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| 1. | Distance
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| 2. | Every Time We Say Goodbye
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| 3. | Drifter
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| 4. | Giant's Gentle Stride
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| 5. | Gorizia
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| 6. | Ciant
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| 7. | The Mermaid
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| 8. | Here Comes the Flood
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| 9. | Remembering the Start of a Never Ending Story
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| 10. | A Song for England
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Jazz
Recorded April 2007, Artesuone Studio, Udine, Italy
Norma Winstone - voice
Glauco Venier - piano
Klaus Gesing - bass clarinet, soprano saxophone
Norma Winstone, England's finest jazz vocalist, returns with a trio featuring German reedman Klaus Gesing and Italian pianist Glauco Venier (both of whom make their ECM debuts here) and a superb programme that takes in songs from Cole Porter to Peter Gabriel, a free calypso, a tribute to Coltrane, adaptations of Satie, folk songs, Pasolini and more and flows like an extended suite. Winstone's lyrics reveal a real poetic sensibility, and both Gesing and Venier are fine jazz composers who put their considerable instrumental skills in the service of the songs. The result: a unique and special group language and one of the season's outstanding recordings.
"Distances" Norma Winstone's first ECM recording in a decade is a project that indeed traverses territories, its wide-ranging repertoire embracing original material, tributes to Coltrane and to Pasolini, cover versions from Cole Porter to Peter Gabriel, pieces inspired by Italian folk music and by Erik Satie, a free calypso and more. For all its broad focus, however,b the music is unified by the rigorous control the musicians exert upon their material. This is jazz of chamber music sensibility and precision, by a trio that improvises in a clearly-defined group language. German reedman Klaus Gesing and Italian pianist Glauco Venier have been influenced by Winstone's earlier recordings, but they work with the material in ways entirely their own.
Both making ECM debuts here, Venier and Gesing have been active as duo partners for more than a decade. Guesting with them eight years ago Winstone recognized at once the potential for trio work: "it was very clear that there was a real possibility of the music developing." The work has progressed on several levels. Both Venier and Gesing are imaginative composers and Winstone, a great singer still underrated as a lyricist, adds words that extend the atmospheres of the pieces with a poet's sure touch. Conversely, piano and bass clarinet or soprano sax frequently underline the meaning of the words. The trio is more of a ‘songs band' than was Azimuth which emphasized the voice-as-instrument (an approach revisited here on the song "Gorizia").
***
Norma Winstone's artistic path has been long and distinguished. In the 1960s the London-born jazz singer was a pioneer in vocal improvisation in important collaborations with musicians including Joe Harriott, John Stevens and Mike Westbrook. She came to ECM in the mid 1970s with the group Azimuth (with John Taylor and Kenny Wheeler) whose five albums recorded between 1977 and 1994 set new standards in improvised chamber music, opened up a new space between jazz and the pattern-pulses of minimalism, and alerted the wider world to the qualities of Winstone's singing.
Norma also appeared on ECM recordings under the leadership of Wheeler ("Music for Large and Small Ensembles") and issued her own "Somewhere Called Home", in which she put words to tunes by Egberto Gismonti, Ralph Towner and others and sang standards, in the company of John Taylor and Tony Coe. Beyond ECM she has collaborated with American jazz artists including Jimmy Rowles, Fred Hersch, Gary Burton and Steve Swallow, and UK jazz greats including Stan Tracey and Boby Wellins.
Glauco Venier graduated in organ and composition from the Udine Conservatory in 1985, then took private lessons with Franco d'Andrea before heading to Boston's Berklee School. He has led his own bands since 1990 and played with a wide cross section of Italian and international musicians including Enrico Rava, Lee Konitz, Kenny Wheeler, Joey Baron, Paolo Fresu and dozens more.
While studying classical music at the Den Hague Conservatory, Klaus Gesing also worked with bands playing own pieces, often inspired by Bulgarian music, strongly drawn to that tradition's use of odds metres. Hwon the first prize of the "jugend jazzt" competition in Nordrhein-Westfalen in 1988 as a tenor sax player before transfering his attention to the soprano saxophone. On the bass clarinet, he sounds like no other player, establishing a unique role for the instrument in the trio with Winstone, alternating between a real bass function and lyrical, soloistic flights. Venier on piano establishes the harmonic frameworks, drawing influence from jazz and classical and Frisian folk sources. For Venier and for Gesing baroque counterpoint is as relevant a reference as New Orleans heterophony or folk music or free playing. In the liner notes for "Distances", Norma Winstone, Glauco Venier and Klaus Gesing give insight into the way such elements are juxtaposed or combined in the group's sound.
"Distances" was recorded at the Artesuone Studio in Udine, Glauco Venier's hometown in April 2007.
Norma Winstone
Active Decades: '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s
Born: Sep 23, 1941 in London, England
Genre: Jazz
Styles: Modern Creative, Avant-Garde, Avant-Garde Jazz
Winstone has a lissome voice, agile and expressive, and she's a fine improviser, besides. That's not to say she's a vocal athlete, however; although she's known for her wordless improvisations, Winstone is a fine interpreter of lyrics and composed melody--a plain-speaking, rhythmically direct singer who gets to the heart of the matter quickly and effectively.
Winstone played piano and organ in her youth. She began singing semi-professionally by the age of 17, influenced by conventional jazz vocalists. During the '60s she became attracted to the jazz avant garde. She played in groups led by pianists Michael Garrick and Mike Westbrook; she also sang with such forward-thinking musicians as saxophonist John Surman, flugelhornist Kenny Wheeler, composer Michael Gibbs, and pianist John Taylor (whom she married in 1972). A late '60s gig at Ronnie Scott's club in London (also on the bill was the legendary tenor saxophonist Roland Kirk) garnered critical notice. In 1971 she was named best jazz singer in a poll by the British publication Melody Maker. That year she recorded her first album as leader, Edge of Time, for the Decca label. With Wheeler and Taylor, Winstone formed Azimuth, a critically-acclaimed contemporary chamber jazz group that recorded several times for the ECM label from the mid '70s. Winstone is also an accomplished lyricist, having written words to music composed by guitarists Egberto Gismonti and Ralph Towner, bassist Steve Swallow, and vocalist Ivan Lins, among others.
In addition to the aforementioned, Winstone has performed and/or recorded in ensembles with Jimmy Rowles, Lee Konitz, Tony Coe, Fred Hersch, John Abercrombie, Dave Holland, Peter Erskine, and George Mraz. In 1992 she collaborated with composer/arranger Steve Gray in the creation of "A French Folk Song Suite," commissioned and performed by the North German Radio big band. She is also a member of Wheeler's big band. In July 2002 she was awarded the title Best Vocalist at the BBC Jazz Awards at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall.
---Chris Kelsey, All Music Guide |
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