Norma Winstone – voc
Kit Downes – p
On her first ECM recording in six years, Norma Winstone can be heard in a new duo with pianist Kit Downes. A unique artist who sees herself not only as a jazz singer but also as a lyricist, Norma brings her poetic sensibility to new pieces by Downes as well as compositions by Carla Bley, Ralph Towner and John Taylor. The program is rounded off by new perspectives on two traditional pieces, Black Is The Colour and Rowing Home.
The duo with Kit, says Norma, was “an accidental thing”, born out of an emergency situation: Winstone’s regular pianist for gigs in the UK, Nikki Iles, was unavailable for a concert in London, “so I booked Kit. I’d never played with him before. And of course he could play everything straight away and amazingly well. So we did a few more gigs and I found that I responded to the sense of adventure in his playing. You never know exactly what’s going to happen, and I love that quality.” When London Jazz News did a round-up of well-wishes for Norma’s 80th birthday, Downes, as she recalls, wrote: “I can’t wait to jump off musical cliffs together again in the near future.” She laughs: “That’s how we both see it. We’ll see where the project takes us.”
OUTPOST OF DREAMS, recorded in April 2023 at Artesuono Studio in Udine and mixed in January 2024 at Bavaria Studio in Munich, was produced by Manfred Eicher.
“The constellation of voice and piano is certainly nothing new in jazz. But “Outpost Of Dreams” by no means follows well-trodden paths. Even if one notes that Downes never accompanies the singer, but dances and plays around her, counteracts, comments and questions her, this sounds much more profane in words than it actually is in the music. Kit Downes and Norma Winstone don’t even try to cover up the generation gap, they consciously fill it and turn it into creative capital. Yes, they sing and play songs, but these songs don’t float on a river, they pour into a delta in which the decision has to be made again and again as to which path is the right one before they dissolve into the ocean of boundless grace.”
Jazzthing cover story, 09/2024
