Mike Gibbs, NDR Bigband, Norma Winstone - Here's a Song for You (2011)

Tracklist

01. Blue
02. So in Love
03. Soldier's Things
04. Riverman
05. I Think It's Going to Rain Today
06. Jitterbug Waltz
07. A Thousand Years
08. Caravan
09. Daydream
10. Here Comes the Honeyman
11. Some Shadows
12. You Go to My Head


The great British jazz singer Norma Winstone has just passed her 70th. Having spent much of her career working with composers who've used her range and precision as a texture, she has blossomed in recent years, with the superb Grammy-nominated 2008 album Distances. Winstone takes on classic pop songs here – including Joni Mitchell's Blue, Tom Waits's Soldier's Things, and Nick Drake's Riverman – with arrangements by Mike Gibbs for Hamburg's NDR Big Band, and Mark Mondesir on drums. Gibbs's low brass parts, riffy sideswipes and Latin grooves transform Cole Porter's So in Love. Soldier's Things has a film noir feel, and Winstone is quietly soulful against the musicians' roar on Riverman. She doesn't quite manage to be playful, raunchy and emotional all at once on Jitterbug Waltz, but Sting's A Thousand Years is perfect for her. A spooky, echo-laden Caravan is startling, and Here Comes the Honeyman balefully bluesy. The reworking of Gibbs's 1970s theme Some Shadows – with a brass/reeds arrangement of Kenny Wheeler's original improvised solo is a bonus.

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