Norma Winstone - Distances

[GA Russell]

ECM has released a trio album with Norma Winstone on vocals, Klaus Gesing on soprano sax and sometimes bass clarinet and Glauco Venier on piano.

It's quite different. It has sort of an "experimental small group playing in a coffeehouse" sort of feel.

All of the vocals have lyrics, and the melodies are all singable if you have talent like Norma Winstone. Venier on piano plays along with the song. Gesing on the horn is doing his thing in the background more like a colorist than playing a song.

I first heard Winstone on one of my favorite albums from my college days, Mike Westbrook's Love Songs. She dropped off my radar for twenty years, but in the past ten years I have seen her name on the internet fairly often. I imagine that the Brits posting at AAJ are very familiar with what she has been doing all these many years. Her voice is still in fine shape. Very sexy IMO.

The three will tour the US late this month:

June 21 - Ann Arbor, MI- The Firefly

June 22 - Baltimore - An Die Musik Live!

June 25 - Philadelphia, PA - Chris' Jazz Café

June 26 - New York, NY - Joe's Pub

Definitely recommmended.

[jazz1]

ECM has released a trio album with Norma Winstone on vocals, Klaus Gesing on soprano sax and sometimes bass clarinet and Glauco Venier on piano.

It's quite different. It has sort of an "experimental small group playing in a coffeehouse" sort of feel.

All of the vocals have lyrics, and the melodies are all singable if you have talent like Norma Winstone. Venier on piano plays along with the song. Gesing on the horn is doing his thing in the background more like a colorist than playing a song.

I first heard Winstone on one of my favorite albums from my college days, Mike Westbrook's Love Songs. She dropped off my radar for twenty years, but in the past ten years I have seen her name on the internet fairly often. I imagine that the Brits posting at AAJ are very familiar with what she has been doing all these many years. Her voice is still in fine shape. Very sexy IMO.

The three will tour the US late this month:

June 21 - Ann Arbor, MI- The Firefly

June 22 - Baltimore - An Die Musik Live!

June 25 - Philadelphia, PA - Chris' Jazz Café

June 26 - New York, NY - Joe's Pub

Definitely recommmended.

Norma is my favorite "alive" jazz singer, I do enjoy the new cd especially the title track, "Distance"

but her previous double cd "Amoroso only more so" (2007)would be my pick as the best of the last few years, only surpassed by the recording she did with the late Jimmy Rowles "Well kept secret"

I also think that her singing is getting better and better and as you said she sounds really sexy.

All of it, lovely stuff.

[A Lark Ascending]

Without doubt, my favourite jazz singer.

'Distances' is marvellous. I've heard her do some of this material over the last few years and was really pleased to see it get to disc. The trio is really worth seeing - I've seen them a couple of times (on one occasion Gesing had left his music at the previous gig and only realised when he got on stage - you'd not have known!). There's an earlier CD by this trio called 'Chamber Music' which also marvellous.

Norma has been extraordinarily active in recent years. What I like is her refusal to sail just one course or rest on her laurels. After years of being known for original music and less structured music she started doing more standards in the 90s (that great disc jazz1 mentions above with Jimmy Rowles, 'Well Kept Secret', for example). Yet she's continued to write her own lyrics to instrumental tunes and drawn from contemporary writers like Randy Newman and Peter Gabriel.

Two discs (one of which jazz1 has already recommended) have snuck out with little fanfare in the last couple of years and are well worth hearing.

The first is quite different to 'Distances' - Norma set against Colin Towns large scale orchestration. Some really imaginative arrangement here. The Tracey/Wellins discs were premiered at Appleby a few years back - as you can imagine, a perfect fit. Mainly standards but ones that don't get out much!

She also does a couple of tracks on bassist Chris Laurence's solo CD of last year, 'New View'. To say nothing of the various Garrick reissues from the 60s/70s.

The only recent Norma disc that didn't make an impact on me was the duo album with Fred Hersch. All perfectly executed but didn't leave anything in my memory banks.)

********************

Anyone know anything about this?:

Recorded in Britain in the 70s with UK musicians including Winstone on vocals. It's just come out from Dutton. It looks like it could be a cocktail party record - I wonder if anyone knows it? Dusty Groove are excited by it...but they seem to be excited by all the CDs they sell!

Finally, if you like Norma's approach to jazz singing which does not take the obvious route I'd recommend casting an ear towards Italy's Maria Pia de Vito and Britain's Christine Tobin, Tina May and (via Australia) Anita Wardell. All grown-up singers who want to be more than the next Julie London.

Edited June 8, 2008 by Bev Stapleton

[alocispepraluger102]

azimuth--the touchstone, with hubby and kenny, made me a winstone fan for life.

rarely have i heard such a combination of artistry, personal feeling, and musicianship.

miss winstone is one of very few vocalists today who does not(to me) sound contrived.

Edited June 8, 2008 by alocispepraluger102

[A Lark Ascending]

This remains for me my favourite Norma winstone album:

The Azimuth group minus Wheeler, plus Tony Coe. The version of 'Tea for Two' is breathtaking!

[sidewinder]

I saw Norma with Azimuth minus Wheeler but with Tony Coe at the Bath Fest circa 1988. In the Georgian splendour of the Pump Rooms, I think it was. Memorable ! (around the time that their ECM album came out - I still have that 'Somewhere Called Home' on vinyl).

Have given Mike Westbrook's 'Love Song' (Deram - Dutton Vocalion reissue) a couple of spins today and this remains I think my favourite Norma performance - although I like her 'Edge of Time' album on Argo a lot and also the various 'Garricks', especially 'Troppo'. Also the stuff recorded with Azimuth and Kenny Wheeler's Orchestra. Her younger singing style gets my preference (has a real freshness and joy to it), although I always try to catch her performances whenever on tour. A guaranteed classy gig and great evening !

How about also that group she toured some years ago with Kenny Wheeler, Fred Hersch and Paul Clarvis? That was a good one too.

Edited June 8, 2008 by sidewinder

[A Lark Ascending]

How about also that group she toured some years ago with Kenny Wheeler, Fred Hersch and Paul Clarvis? That was a good one too.

Yes indeed. I was at the Oxford concert where they recorded the CD of that line-up.

She also did a great tour with Steve Swallow, John Taylor and Ralph Towner singing mainly Swallow tunes.

[Alexander Hawkins]

I really would like to check out the one with Stan Tracey and Bobby Wellins. Interesting to read the comments about the new one on ECM, the one track from which I've heard left me more than a little cold...

I like what she does on Amancio D'Silva's 'Hum Dono' as well!

[GA Russell]

This was nominated for a Grammy today: Best Jazz Vocal Album

[Larry Kart]

I really would like to check out the one with Stan Tracey and Bobby Wellins. Interesting to read the comments about the new one on ECM, the one track from which I've heard left me more than a little cold...

The one with Tracey and Wellins, "Amoroso ... Only More So," mostly standards, is the best vocal album I've heard in a good while. What I've heard of the ECM left me cold too -- as fine a singer as Winstone is, the songs (mostly original music wrapped around texts by various poets and Winstone) struck me as arty/pretentious. Winstone seems to me a much more inventive, substantial artist when she's dealing with standards.

[jazz1]

"Amoroso only more so" and "Well kept secret" are my fav.

[ejp626]

I really would like to check out the one with Stan Tracey and Bobby Wellins. Interesting to read the comments about the new one on ECM, the one track from which I've heard left me more than a little cold...

The one with Tracey and Wellins, "Amoroso ... Only More So," mostly standards, is the best vocal album I've heard in a good while. ...

I was going to post elsewhere, but this is as good a place as any. Trio Records, which put out Amoroso Only More So has a website with a fair number of Tracey and Wellins CDs: http://www.triorecords.toucansurf.com/

Not a bad price as UK pricing goes (generally 11 pounds and more for this one as it is a double CD). However, I wanted to find out the price to ship to the US, and they said that it was included in the price, so maybe a better deal for US (and European) residents than for UK residents. I'll probably hold off on this one, but am eyeing two other CDs of interest.

[A Lark Ascending]

I really would like to check out the one with Stan Tracey and Bobby Wellins. Interesting to read the comments about the new one on ECM, the one track from which I've heard left me more than a little cold...

The one with Tracey and Wellins, "Amoroso ... Only More So," mostly standards, is the best vocal album I've heard in a good while. ...

I was going to post elsewhere, but this is as good a place as any. Trio Records, which put out Amoroso Only More So has a website with a fair number of Tracey and Wellins CDs: http://www.triorecords.toucansurf.com/

Not a bad price as UK pricing goes (generally 11 pounds and more for this one as it is a double CD). However, I wanted to find out the price to ship to the US, and they said that it was included in the price, so maybe a better deal for US (and European) residents than for UK residents. I'll probably hold off on this one, but am eyeing two other CDs of interest.

Trio is run by Andy Cleyndert, bassist to Stan amonst others. Great player and versatile chap - in the last few years of Appleby he seemed to be playing one in three sets...and recording a fair few of them.

The two most recent Bobby Wellins records on Trio are fantastic.

[ejp626]

Trio is run by Andy Cleyndert, bassist to Stan amonst others. ...

The two most recent Bobby Wellins records on Trio are fantastic.

They actually quote a review you wrote on one of the Wellins' CDs (When the Sun Comes Out). I think it has swayed me to buy the CD. What is the other one - Snapshot - or something else?

[A Lark Ascending]

Trio is run by Andy Cleyndert, bassist to Stan amonst others. ...

The two most recent Bobby Wellins records on Trio are fantastic.

They actually quote a review you wrote on one of the Wellins' CDs (When the Sun Comes Out). I think it has swayed me to buy the CD. What is the other one - Snapshot - or something else?

'Snapshot' - came out a few months back. Like the previous one it comes from live performance.

I've never felt that the studio discs Bobby Wellins has done have really captured him. But these two are perfect. Nice, long tracks with all four musicians playing their part to the full. I'd liken them in feel to the Miles 'My Funny Valentine/Four and More' recordings or George Coleman's own live recordings. Wellins, of course, sounds nothing like Coleman.