Norma Winstone

“Stories Yet To Tell”

(ECM Records ECM 2158 273 7426)

I get sent dozens of albums by wannabe jazz singers, most of them singing the same tired old standards and often adding an unwelcome pop sheen to the proceedings. Inevitably there are some pearls that emerge from the sea of mediocrity but even the best of these don’t come anywhere near touching the sublime singing of Norma Winstone.

Winstone is the complete jazz singer, equally at home interpreting jazz standards (what she self deprecatingly refers to as her “Radio 2 side”) as she is at singing abstract wordless vocals in the bands of Michael Garrick or the “chamber jazz” group Azimuth with pianist John Taylor and trumpeter Kenny Wheeler. 

Winstone first came to prominence with Garrick, Mike Westbrook and other leading progressive British jazz musicians in the late 60’s early 70’s, often using her wordless vocals in the manner of an instrument in both large and small ensembles. She later refined this approach with Azimuth, a trio signed to ECM by Manfred Eicher that produced a series of refined and often beautiful albums throughout the late 70’s and early 80’s.

Besides her group work Winstone has also established a career as a respected solo artist beginning with the ambitious “Edge Of Time” (1972-issued on CD 1999). Her ECM début as a solo performer came in 1986 with “Somewhere Called Home”, a trio record featuring her then husband John Taylor on piano and Tony Coe on reeds. It’s a beautiful album and in many ways can be said to have sown the seeds for Winstone’s work with pianist Gauco Venier and reeds player Klaus Gesing, her musical partners on this current project. 

Winstone has worked with Venier and Gesing for ten years recording two previous albums, “Chamber Music” (Universal, 2004) and “Distances” (ECM, 2008). The ECM record attracted considerable plaudits and rightly so, but if anything “Stories Yet To Tell” is even better as Winstone and her colleagues continue to hone their musical and lyrical approach. 

Winstone is a brilliant exponent of “vocalese”, the art of adding words to an already existing instrumental composition. “Somewhere Called Home” added poetic lyrics to tunes by fellow ECM artists Kenny Wheeler, Ralph Towner and Egberto Gismonti. Her version of Steve Swallow’s “Ladies In Mercedes” has practically become a jazz standard, a piece that has entered the repertoire of many an aspiring jazz vocalist.

With Gesing and Venier Winstone spreads her net beyond the jazz canon to embrace folk, pop and classical music plus the original compositions of her two colleagues. Her words get better and better, always poetic, vaguely spiritual and containing ambiguous allusions to nature, place, nostalgia, love and loss. Outside material is always immaculately chosen and is perfectly suited to the timbres of Winstone’s voice.

“Stories Yet To Tell” begins with “Just Sometimes”, Winstone’s setting of the the music of Mexican composer Armando Manzanero. Winstone sings reflectively of love, loss and nostalgia, of the emotions and vague longings experienced when “a window to the past is opened”. Her voice is pure but tinged with a slight regret with Venier’s crystalline piano and Gesing’s low register, almost subliminal, bass clarinet the perfect accompaniment.

On Gesing’s tune “Sisyphus” Winstone draws her imagery from Greek myth.  The mood is bleak and beautiful with long vocal lines mingling with sparse piano and grainy bass clarinet. There’s a lovely solo from Gesing who extracts maximum lyricism from his instrument.

“Cradle Song (Hoy Nazan)” takes it’s melody from an Armenian lullaby and skilfully blends Winstone’s original lyrics with the poetry of Christina Rosetti. It’s clearly a touchstone piece for the trio with the title of the album, “Stories Yet To Tell”, taken from a line in Winstone’s lyrics. The beautiful folk derived melody serves the trio well with Gesing continuing on bass clarinet.

“Like A Lover” features Gesing’s arrangement of Dori Caymmi’s tune with lyrics by Nelson Motta and Alan & Marilyn Bergman. The piece is perfectly chosen, the words fit Winstone like a glove and Gesing’s arrangement, featuring himself on feathery soprano saxophone is similarly immaculate and beautiful.

With music by Gesing and words by Winstone “Rush” is a reflection of the fragility and brevity of human life when set in the face of nature. Piano and bass clarinet complement the lyric images of the four elements and the big clock of nature.

Transience is also the theme of another Gesing tune, “The Titles” with Winstone drawing her imagery from the movie industry. It’s a lovely lament for a lost Hollywood. 

Venier wrote the music for “Carnera” which offers a prolonged example of the quality of Winstone’s wordless vocalising alongside a brief but succinct lyric. There’s more use of the “voice as instrument” on “Lipe Rosize” a traditional melody arranged by Venier which thrillingly teams Winstone’s voice with Gesing’s soprano saxophone. It’s the most “out” piece on the album with Venier sometimes reaching into his instrument to dampen the strings. Elsewhere his playing, more percussive than that elsewhere on the album, is a delight.

Winstone manages to fit poetic lyrics to the abstractions of Maria Schneider’s tune on “Among The Clouds”. Suitably soaring soprano from Gesing is the perfect accompaniment to the bittersweet imagery of the words.

“Ballo Furlano” is Venier’s arrangement of a sixteenth century Friulian folk song by Giorgio Mainerio. Another inspired choice it represents an inspired dialogue between wordless voice and bass clarinet and piano.

“Goddess” is a perfect example of Winstone’s “vocalese” as she takes a Wayne Shorter tune and adds poetic but unsettling lyrics that seem to draw on the myth of Diana the Huntress.

The album ends with Venier’s arrangement of a 13th century troubador’s song “En mort d’En Joan de Cucanh”. It’s brief and beautiful with wordless voice and instruments combining with only the minimum of ornamentation and closes the album on an almost sacred note.

“Stories Yet To Tell” might just be the best thing Norma Winstone has ever recorded. An air of intimacy and fragile beauty pervades the whole album with voice, words and music combining in perfect synchronicity.  All three musicians are brilliant technicians but there is no grandstanding, each serves the material faithfully and this is a genuine trio album- it’s emphatically not just a singer and accompanists. The famous ECM production values also enhance the music considerably (the trio were recorded at ArteSuono studios in Udine, Italy) with Manfred Eicher’s approach perfectly suited to the trio’s sound. Winstone remains the doyenne of British (or should that be European) jazz singing but she’s a reluctant star and “Stories Yet To Tell” should perhaps be acknowledged as a supreme piece of collaborative teamwork.

The trio will be appearing at The Barbican on 17th November 2010 as part of the London Jazz Festival in a double bill with fellow ECM recording artists the Charles Lloyd Quartet. More details at http://www.ecmrecords.com and www.normawinstone.com
 

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