Norma Winstone - Dance Without Answer (2013) [Official Digital Download 24/88]

The great British jazz singer Norma Winstone once again casts her net wide for source material for this third ECM album with Italian pianist Glauco Venier and German clarinetist / saxophonist Klaus Gesing. Alongside new pieces by Winstone/Gesing and by Venier, the trio covers tunes by singer-songwriters Nick Drake, Fred Neil and Tom Waits. They take a fresh approach to Madonna’s “Live To Tell”, and to Dave Grusin’s “It Might Be You”, as well as Ralph Towner’s “A Breath Away” (now with lyrics by Norma) and “Bein’ Green”, a children’s song elevated to jazz standard status by Sinatra, Stan Kenton, Ray Charles and many more. “As Winstone moves ever farther from the Great American Songbook,” All About Jazz observed, “it's certain that, with band mates as sympathetic as Gesing and Venier, there's precious little she can't do”.

In a career entering its sixth decade, in ensembles large and small, vocalist and lyricist Norma Winstone is remarkable in delivering far more than mere expectations require. Using the discipline of understatement and economy, she has continually displayed in both her interpretive singing and original material, a trademark ability to uncover shades that become worlds of meaning and emotional power in a song. Dance Without Answer is the third recording with Italian pianist Glauco Venier and German reedman Klaus Gesing. For over an hour they present sparse, seductive, and bracing originals alongside an adventurous selection of thoroughly re-imagined covers from folk, pop, Brazilian music, cinema, and even children's television. The latter include the juxtaposition of readings of Nick Drake's "Time of No Reply" with glorious reed work by Gesing, and a voice/bass clarinet duet on Tom Waits' "San Diego Serenade." Elsewhere, "Cucurrucucu Paloma" by Tomás Mendéz is given a new English lyric by Winstone. The reading of Madonna's "Live to Tell," with its skeletal, elliptical piano, places her voice in a less dramatic context, but she draws out its lyric with precise accents that, as a result, is as resonant – if not more so – than the original. Winstone also adds lyrics to Ralph Towner's "Lost and Found," and presents slow-burning yet searing versions of Dave Grusin's "It Might Be You” (from the film Tootsie) and "Bein' Green" (it has been covered so often it's now a part of the American Standards book; it originated on the Muppets television program). The originals hold up equally, particularly the opening title track. Winstone's lyric is inconclusive: it's an open-ended farewell with its protagonist left to wonder about the true reason of her beloved's departure. "High Places," with its elegiac clarinet intro and wordless vocal phrasing, seemingly comes across time and space to greet the listener with implied images of empty vistas of panoramic beauty; when she begins singing her lyric, the story unfolds and the implication of the cinematic is confirmed. The set closes with a fine reading of Fred Neil's "Everybody's Talking," that walks a line closer to the original than Nilsson's definitive version, but highlights the poignancy in the lyric, and its protagonist's feeling of the outside and need to depart. Dance Without Answer presents this trio in excellent form, taking more chances and delivering on them without exception.

Tracklist:

01 - Dance Without Answer
02 - Cucurrucucu Paloma
03 - High Places
04 - Gust da essi viva
05 - A tor a tor
06 - Live to Tell
07 - It Might Be You
08 - Time of No Reply
09 - San Diego Serenade
10 - A Breath Away
11 - Bein' Green
12 - Slow Fox
13 - Everybody's Talkin'

Produced by Manfred Eicher. Engineered by Stefano Amerio.
Recorded December 2012 at Auditorio Radiotelevisione Svizzera, Lugano.

Musicians:
Norma Winstone - vocals
Glauco Venier - piano
Klaus Gesing - bass clarinet, soprano saxophone


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