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Product details
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Track Listings
| 1. Just Sometimes |
| 2. Sisyphus |
| 3. Cradle Song (Hoy Nazan) |
| 4. Like A Lover |
| 5. Rush |
| 6. The Titles |
| 7. Carnera |
| 8. Lipe Rosize |
| 9. Among The Clouds |
| 10. Ballo furlano |
| 11. Goddess |
| 12. En mort d'En Joan de Cucanh |
Product Description
Review
A grande dame of British jazz, Norma Winstone MBE may be approaching her 70th birthday but the east London-born vocalist shows no signs of fading into well-earned retirement just yet. Indeed, the former Azimuth figurehead and veteran collaborator with everyone from pianists John Taylor and Mike Westbrook to Ian Carr and Kenny Wheeler, has made some of the best received albums of her lengthy career during the last decade; not least 2008’s Distances, which garnered a Grammy nomination and a clutch of European jazz awards.
Reuniting with her collaborators on that album, reeds player Klaus Gesing and pianist Glauco Venier, Stories Yet to Tell, like its predecessor, proffers an eclectic miscellany of material. Included this time are standards, mediaeval music, an Armenian lullaby, a Wayne Shorter number and several improvisations based on texts by Winstone herself, all of it moulded into a homogenous whole by Gesing’s subtly interwoven woodwind and soprano sax, Venier’s warm, embracing keyboard harmonisations and Winstone’s highly nuanced, expertly modulated vocalising. As ever with ECM, the production, by label founder Manfred Eicher, is a rich, enveloping delight, somehow lending equally acute detail to both Winstone’s aerated upper range tonalities and the woody sonorities of Gesing’s bass clarinet.
Despite the disparate provenance of the songs, the album unfurls seamlessly, like episodes from the same narrative, the ‘meaning’ deducible as much from the tone and timbre of Winstone’s wordless improvisational flights as from the lyrics. Thus, Among the Clouds takes wing on wafting unison phrases between voice and woodwind while Winstone adds her own lyrics to the Armenian Cradle Song’s gentle swaying. The 13th century troubadour song En Mort d’En Joan de Cucanh, meanwhile, fuses the worlds of numinous sacred music and meditative jazz with an alacrity which fans of Jan Garbarek’s collaborations with the Hilliard Ensemble should relish.
Wistful, ethereal and subtle music-making like this will be too soothing, even soporific, for some. But while Stories Yet to Tell is unlikely to win many new converts, those already seduced by Norma Winstone’s drowsily compelling voice – and by the dreamy allure of Distances in particular – will find plenty to luxuriate in here.
--David SheppardFind more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
Jazzwise, (Duncan Heining), September 2010
(4 stars) Fascinating trio...must rank as one of the most perfect song cycles in jazz. This is a magnificent record.
(4 stars) An impressive follow-up...Armando Manzanero's lost-love ballad Just Sometimes is magical...Dori Caymmi's Like a Lover is a sublime reflection.
It's the songs featuring Winstone's own lyrics that really stand out...the bewitching Goddess...Glauco Venier and Klaus Gesing provide exquisite minimalist accompaniment.
(4 stars) An impressive follow-up...Armando Manzanero's lost-love ballad Just Sometimes is magical...Dori Caymmi's Like a Lover is a sublime reflection.
It's the songs featuring Winstone's own lyrics that really stand out...the bewitching Goddess...Glauco Venier and Klaus Gesing provide exquisite minimalist accompaniment.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
This follow up to the excellent "Distances" ploughs a similar vein although not quite to the same effect. As before, the predominant mood is suitably autumnal and the theme of the passing of time is only emphasised by a number of songs concerning gods including the self-explanatory "Goddess" and "Sisyphus" (the king compelled for eternity to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down) while "Carnera" is named after the man mountain Italian boxer nicknamed the "Ambling alp" and about whom Winstone sings "lonely the path he treads".
Like its predecessor, "Stories Yet to Tell" plays its finest card first with "just Sometimes" a song of rare beauty and the finest example of Winstone's voice which, although rich, does not dominate the accompaniment, preferring to impress through a sympathy for the material and versatility of tone. Although the musicianship is nothing left than first rate, about half way through the album rather loses momentum. While there is nothing so vulgar as a bad track songs like "The Titles" (about a certain absence upon the conclusion of the credits at the cinema) are attractive on their own terms, collectively they do not demand as much interest as the songs which opened the album which concludes with the rather insubstantial "En Mort d'En Joan de Cucanh".
Had the quality of the first five songs been maintained, this would have merited a 4.5. As it is it receives a slightly miserly 3.5 but is still, nonetheless, recommended.
Like its predecessor, "Stories Yet to Tell" plays its finest card first with "just Sometimes" a song of rare beauty and the finest example of Winstone's voice which, although rich, does not dominate the accompaniment, preferring to impress through a sympathy for the material and versatility of tone. Although the musicianship is nothing left than first rate, about half way through the album rather loses momentum. While there is nothing so vulgar as a bad track songs like "The Titles" (about a certain absence upon the conclusion of the credits at the cinema) are attractive on their own terms, collectively they do not demand as much interest as the songs which opened the album which concludes with the rather insubstantial "En Mort d'En Joan de Cucanh".
Had the quality of the first five songs been maintained, this would have merited a 4.5. As it is it receives a slightly miserly 3.5 but is still, nonetheless, recommended.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
"Stories yet To Tell" is one of those special albums that is capable of touching the soul. Norma Winstone's voice, backed only by sensitive accompaniment on piano and reeds, is haunting and beautiful in equal measure. Covering a range of meditative, lyrical songs that contain elements of magic, reflection and yearning, the collection works perfectly together and is a spellbinding listen. Sometimes, when sound like this is pared down to just a trio setting, the material can become laboured and a little dull, but that's not the case here. Even though the mood is never anything less than dreamily slow, it doesn't feel like hard work to listen to around 53 minutes in this vein. Uptempo it isn't - and that would indeed spoil the mood and atmosphere - but as a song cycle it works beautifully.
The CD contains some of the most beautiful music you'll hear this year. Great lyrics, sensitively presented, and virtuoso performances from all concerned, this is a masterpiece from ECM.
The CD contains some of the most beautiful music you'll hear this year. Great lyrics, sensitively presented, and virtuoso performances from all concerned, this is a masterpiece from ECM.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
5 of 8 people found the following review helpful
MUSICA PARA DISFRUTAR
17 Oct 2010
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Norma Wistone ha llegado a un punto de madurez incuestionable. Es musica para disfrutarla en tranquilidad. Para escucharla tranquilamente, sin prisas. Solo por escucharla cantando el tema de Armando Manzanero merece a pena comprar el disco.¿Jazz, clasica, sonido ECM...? No lo se, es simplemente magnifico.Muy recomendable para aquellos que no se dejen llevar por las etiquetas ni por un falso intelectualismo.Es belleza en el mas simple sentido de la palabra.
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