|
Lisa Kirchner
|
6 avril 2013
|
|
Something to Sing About-Umbrellas In Mint
|
© Jazz Hot n°663, Spring 2013
Nouveauté-Sélection
Lisa Kirchner
Something to Sing About
In Autumn, Prince of the City, The Cloisters: Fort Tryon Park: September, Sigh No More-Ladies, Suicide in C minor, Early in the Morning, I was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky: Leila's Song, Crazy Love, Crazy Heart, Old American Songs II: I. The Little Horses, Final Alice: Acrostic Song, Barefoot, Lily, The Great Gatsby: Strange, Elephant Steps: Photograph Song, Casino Paradise: Night Make My Day, Sophie Rose-Rosalee, Under the Willow Tree, Old American Songs I: III. Long Time Ago
Lisa Kirchner (voc), Sherman Irby (as), William Schimmel (acc), Joel Fan (p), Xavier Davis (p), Dwayne Burno (b), Vicente Archer (b), Ron Jackson (g), Willie Jones III (dm)
Enregistré les 10 et 12 août 2010, Avatar Studio, New York, NY
Durée : 1h 09’ 53”
Albany/Troy1288 (www.albanyrecords.com)
Nouveauté-Sélection
Lisa Kirchner
Umbrellas In Mint
Salty and Blue (I Don't Believe in Romance), A Billion Stars Ago (In the Shadow of a Cow), What About You?, The Hudson Bay Inn, Umbrellas in Mint, Tim, Let Us Go Then, Under The Paris Moon (Manhattan Under the Paris Moon), At the Closing of the Fair, Old Shoes, Southern Starlight (Charleston For You), Quarters and Dimes
Lisa Kirchner (voc), Sherman Irby (as), Bill Schimmel (acc) Xavier Davis (p), Ron Jackson (g), Vicente Archer (b), Willie Jones III (dm)
Enregistré le 21 août 2013, Avatar Studios, New York, NY
Durée : 56’ 14”
Verdant World Records 003 (www.verdantworldrecords.com)
Lisa Kirchner whom we know on two sides of the Atlantic is an incarnation of the American musical tradition in her universal approach. Born in a musical family (her father, Leon Kirchner, is an eminent classical composer, her mother, Gertrude, a singer, cf. Jazz Hot n° 644), she indeed has a formal musical background, but she is well versed in the tradition of popular music, so rich in the United States, including jazz, and it is in this genre that an essential part of her musical career unfolds. This explains no doubt that categorized in jazz, the nature of her voice and her expression are “crossover”, as one finds qualities of a classical singer (pitch,), popular music (timbre, repertoire), of a jazz singer (pulse, rhythm, phrasing, training). She adds to this variety of attributes her own process which saw her becoming a part time Parisian, and explains her attraction to a certain ambience and theme in popular French music, none of this being in any way contradictory for its simply her history, and her personality. Her clear sincerity brings a real sensibility to her recordings which she releases with regularity and professionalism, as she is most often producer and leader. Moreover, with great care, she chooses a musical group of the highest level coming mostly from jazz but also from popular and classical music depending on genre.The first recording of 2012, released shortly after the death of her father (September 2009), ia tribute without a doubt, unites jazz musicians (Xavier Davis, Sherman Irby, Vicente Archer, Dwayne Burno, Willie Jones III), and classical (Joel Fan, William Schimmel). It’s a beautiful realization and clearly the one that corresponds most closely to a personality so richly musical, but also so accomplished in terms of style. Classical, popular, jazz and traditional compositions, from Charles Ives, Aaron Copland and Leon Kirchner to Wynton Marsalis, side by side without a catch. For Lisa Kirchner adapts herself to the entire repertoire, and because she gives a lot of room to the musicians, each brings his own voice creating coherence, heard in the beautiful « Crazy Love, Crazy Heart », the only Lisa Kirchner original.
It is an exceptional accomplishment in musical arrangement to arrive at such a unity of tone, with marvelous success (magnificent « Lily » by Leon Kirchner, « Suicide in C minor » by Schimmel, but there are other beautiful compositions). It is really an essential album in defining the musical origins and personality of Lisa Kirchner, and in addition, one which evokes a century of American music with ease.
Two years later, we find practically the same musicians in the same New York studio for a recording focused on popular music entirely composed by Lisa Kirchner. The tone is certainly more casual, but one finds the same qualities for the most part expressive of the grand American tradition with its lyrical and Parisian components, its popular subjects, with the beautiful accordion of William Schimmel who brings so much to an ensemble where jazz is of course the principle color and the musicians always attentive (remarkable Willie Jones III, as always, Sherman Irby). Its fine tuned, authentic and the group creates an atmosphere in which the voice of Lisa Kirchner presents her words with delicacy.
Yves Sportis
|
|
