| PRODUCT DETAILS | | Distances |  | |
Distances
Revelatory new album from England's finest jazz singer. Norma Winstone's first ECM recording in over a decade and very possibly her best. The characteristically sparse instrumentation lends itself beautifully to the singer's evocative lyrics. Winstone leads inspired trio with German reedman Klaus Gesing and Italian pianist Glauco Venier, both making their ECM debuts. The program - with sensibilities and textures spanning chamber music and jazz - consists of original material co-composed by the trio, plus cover versions from Cole Porter to Peter Gabriel, tributes to Coltrane and Pasolini, a free calypso, and pieces inspired by folk music and Satie.This is the year for the light to shine upon the music and career of Norma Winstone.
Manufacturer: ECM
Price Range: $11.98 - $17.98
 Distances
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| User Reviews |  | The Jazz Equivalent of an Art Song Album
rating: 5
This is a most unusual jazz vocal album, and a very fine one. We've grown used to exceptional sound production from Manfred Eicher's ECM label but it bears noting that without the separation of the sounds of the three musicians, so that we can listen to them individually as well as collectively, and without the pristine clarity of the sound production over all, this record would be much less of a triumph.
Winstone plus piano and reed --bass clarinet and soprano saxophone-- three musicians-- create an album of exquisite music that is half jazz and half classical art song, and all joy. Winstone's vibrato-less contralto(?) voice blends perfectly with her partners. She improvises and, for the most part, they play what has been put in front of them -- or at least that's how it seems on listening. The result is fresh and exulting, controlled but liberating. The best songs are the original ones. The first song --"Distances"-- is revelatory, absolutely wonderful.
The least successful songs? There is a remake of the ballad, "Everytime We Say Goodbye," that is almost banal. It definitely drags in tempo, but even this song is miles above most contemporary jazz singing in its overall quality. Later on in the album, a mock calypso song really doesn't work: Winstone's voice and tonality don't enhance the song and for one moment she almost sounds amateurish. But I don't care! This is the best vocal album I've heard since early Cassandra Wilson. The musicians on it are professionals. It has to be one of their finest moments.
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Norma Winstone, Distances
rating: 5
Distances is hauntingly beautiful jazz in a melancholy mode. Norma Winstone's voice is a powerful instrument, and the accompaniment is striking. Those who listen to his album will not forget it.
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Norma Winstone "Distances"
rating: 5
I couldn't find any fault with this recording. It is some jazz at its best.
I am not a musician so I am not able to critique it technically as some might but I have been listening to jazz for forty years. It is a winner.
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Riviting
rating: 5
Coolly spare and warmly evocative at the same time. An effective reminder that fine artists can communicate volumes with simple means at a whispered volume. I am no fan of deconstruction of classics simply for the sake of deconstruction, but here we have the perfect mix of respect for the source material and personalized inventiveness. Hypnotic; demanding attention without overtly demanding it. Musical string theory: little universes where time seems to stop. Lovely and literate.
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Distances
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