Agneta Baumann - A Time For Love (1996)

This is singer Agneta Baumann's come-back after an absence of nearly ten years from the scene; a musical self-portrait of artistic stature which is at the same time an open personal statement, as revealing as though the words were spoken in confidence.

Up until the middle of the 80's Agneta Baumann had become established not purely as a jazz singer but more as a jazz-influenced artist-entertainer had in the glamorous environment of late-night dinner/dance restaurants. She was born in the town of Kalmar in south-eastern Sweden where as a youngster she sang in the school choir and as a teenager in the school jazz band, as she happened to prefer Anita O'Day to Elvis Presley. Later in life she also came to appreciate the artistry of Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae and Billie Holiday.

But it was not until after some years spent in other working activities that music took a central role in her life. During a period in the travel-agent business in Copenhagen 1965 she began to sing with The Golden Girls, a popular group in the style of The Supremes, and after an engagement in Stockholm 1968 she decided to stay and branch out on her own. During the following years she toured throughout the country and abroad with her own constellation "Agneta Baumanns Orkester". From the later part of the 70's she also often sang together with the jazz pianist Knud Jörgensen, who taught her what is perhaps the most important thing of all, that the space between phrases is also music, and that you have to mean what you sing.