Lauren Kinhan
Pays Tribute to
Legendary Vocalist Nancy Wilson
in Transformative Fashion on the
First All-Standards Album of her Career
CD Release Concerts:Pays Tribute to
Legendary Vocalist Nancy Wilson
in Transformative Fashion on the
First All-Standards Album of her Career
November 8, 2017 8pm Red Room @ Café 939 WBGO Live Stream Boston, MA Tickets & Info
January 3, 2018
JEN Convention – Inspiration Stage – Dallas, TX
January 11, 2018
Sheen Center of the Performing Arts, 7 pm
Pre Show Talk with Elliot Scheiner and recorded band, and the showing of the “Making Of A Sleepin’ Bee” mini movie,
8 pm Concert, NY, NY
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A
Sleepin’ Bee uses Wilson’s iconic collaborations with Cannonball
Adderley and George Shearing as the starting point for a unique take on
the tribute album
“Every
single song in this collection hits a sweet spot of a different sort,
but the most pleasing aspect of the recording is how it uncovers the
stripped-down, soulful side of Kinhan's voice.” – Dan Bilawsky, All
About Jazz
“Echoes
of the artist in her own voice, that’s what so lovingly resounds in the
voice of Lauren Kinhan on A Sleepin’ Bee, her tribute to Nancy Wilson.”
– Michael Bourne, WBGO
“Her
approach to the material is anything but conventional; with her big,
flexible voice, Kinhan brings the passion of a soul singer to the
improvisatory reach of a jazz diva.” – Suzanne Lorge, New York City Jazz
Record
"Her
luscious, velvet voice is a good place to rest your weary head." – Ken
Blanchard, Jazznote SD "A vocal tour de force" – Jazz Journal, Sally
Evans-Darby
“Lauren Kinhan is a tremendously gifted jazz singer.” – Christopher Loudon, JazzTimes
Whether
on her own highly-acclaimed albums, as a 25-year member of the beloved
vocal group New York Voices, or as co-founder of two diverse and
inventive supergroups, Moss and JaLaLa, singer/songwriter Lauren Kinhan
has always forged her own path as a performer, composer and improviser.
With her latest, A Sleepin’ Bee (due out October 6
on her own Dotted i Records), Kinhan once again steers herself in
unexpected directions with a new release that is at once the first
all-standards collection of her career, a loving tribute to legendary
vocalist Nancy Wilson, and unmistakably a Lauren Kinhan album – with all
the unique perspective and idiosyncratic personality that has come to
imply.
If
the sudden appearance of an album’s worth of standards in a catalogue
dominated by original songs comes as a surprise, the process of its
creation is just as atypical. While Kinhan spent much of 2016
conceiving, rehearsing and workshopping the project, the circumstances
of the recording arose suddenly through the auspices of her alma mater,
Berklee College of Music. The session suddenly became an educational
opportunity as well as a record date, providing a small group of Berklee
students the invaluable privilege of observing and engaging in a
recording session at the highest level.
First
and foremost, though, A Sleepin’ Bee is a celebration of Nancy Wilson
on the occasion of the genre- hopping singer’s 80th birthday. While
Kinhan shares Wilson’s penchant for blurring stylistic boundaries, her
choice of material focuses on Wilson’s early jazz albums, particularly
her collaborations with Cannonball Adderley and George Shearing. Those
recordings proved to be a jumping-off point for Kinhan, who utterly
transforms these classic and obscure numbers with the help of
pianist/creative partner Andy Ezrin and veteran producer Elliot Scheiner
as well as a stellar band featuring bassist Matt Penman, drummer Jared
Schonig and special guest trumpeter Ingrid Jensen.
With
three brilliant albums of her own songs under her belt, not to mention
her game-changing work with three distinctive vocal groups and
wide-ranging collaborations with singular artists from Ornette Coleman
to Bobby McFerrin, Kinhan decided it was finally time to create an album
more in line with the jazz tradition of interpreting
a
book of standards. Of course, Kinhan has never been one to follow an
obvious route, so the results quickly became something wholly her own.
“I approached this project similarly to the way I write songs, except
that in this case that creativity was expressed in the arranging and
approach to the lyrics,” she explains. “I wanted to make an album that
was inspired by Nancy Wilson but still conveys my point of view in the
way that I think about, interpret and reimagine music.”
The
starting point for the project quickly became Nancy Wilson/Cannonball
Adderley, the 1961 album on which the 24-year-old singer was backed by
Adderley’s incredible quintet with his brother Nat, pianist Joe Zawinul,
bassist Sam Jones and drummer Louis Hayes. Kinhan had fallen in love
with the album as a young girl searching through her parents’ record
collection, enamored with both Wilson’s soulful voice and her elegant
image. “I remember being 7 or 8, staring at the cover of this beautiful
woman in a yellow dress and connecting with the songs, the arrangements
and the bite of her tone. I know those songs like I know the songs of
Carole King and Joni Mitchell. So revisiting them, they feel like a
favorite cashmere sweater.”
The
12 tracks on Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley were evenly split between
vocal and instrumental pieces, and Kinhan interprets all but one of the
vocal tunes on A Sleepin’ Bee. To fill out the repertoire, she began
delving into Wilson’s catalogue – only reaching 1964 before she had more
than enough to work with. The remaining repertoire is carefully
cultivated from Wilson’s early-60s releases, the bulk of it coming from
The Swingin’s Mutual!, Wilson’s 1960 collaboration with pianist George
Shearing.
“In
a way,” Kinhan says, “A Sleepin’ Bee is also a tribute to Cannonball
and George Shearing and the fine musicians that played on the original
recordings. The pairing of the voice and great players is what it’s all
about. It’s never just about singing for me; it’s the whole creative
spectrum of arranging notes and form, and connecting with the
musicians.”
Those
elements are combined and rearranged in disparate and intriguing ways
throughout A Sleepin’ Bee, from the laid-back swing of “Let’s Live
Again” to the haunted melancholy of “You Don’t Know What Love Is,”
whether stretching the melody like taffy on “Never Will I Marry”
(parried by Berklee classmate Jensen’s darting trumpet) or finding a
playfully bold character at the heart of the title tune. She effectively
melds Nat Adderley’s “The Old Country” with Billy Strayhorn’s “Passion
Flower,” and fully imbues “Born To Be Blue” with the remorseful mood
inherent in its title. Kinhan’s vulnerable, stripped-down version of
“Save Your Love For Me” completely reimagines Wilson’s iconic take –
which Kinhan previously performed both with and for Wilson herself,
first on a recording with the New York Voices and later with the Voices
as part of Wilson’s 2004 induction as a National Endowment for the Arts
Jazz Master.
Perhaps
the most surprising inclusion is Wilson’s debut single, “Guess Who I
Saw Today,” whose lyrics haven’t exactly aged well. Kinhan puts a new
twist on the tune not only with her sly vocal performance - which acidly
comments on a song that frames its tale of infidelity with some
decidedly Eisenhower-era social mores – but with an updated arrangement
that makes the song her own, apart from Wilson’s quintessential version.
“You
better have a perspective on this song, especially as a woman who’s
been an outspoken feminist my whole life,” Kinhan says. “It’s not that
cheating is old-fashioned; it’s the way that the story is pitched from
the beginning, drawing an outmoded picture of marriage where the woman
stays home, does the shopping and dotes on her husband, who spends his
day at work. To chew on those words was so strange - but it was also fun
to hold that mirror up to society and look at its absurdity.”
“(You
Don’t Know) How Glad I Am” was a fresh discovery for Kinhan in her
research for the project. Despite Wilson’s recording having won a Grammy
in 1964, it was not that version but a less ornate live rendition that
grabbed Kinhan’s ear, and she takes a similar approach, powerfully
singing with gospel-inflected soul accompanied only by Ezrin’s lyrical
piano and Penman’s subtle bass. The at times inane lyrics of “Happy
Talk” are sent up in a slapstick carnival atmosphere to close the album
on a particularly offbeat note.
Recording
the album with multiple Grammy-winner Elliot Scheiner at Berklee’s
state-of-the-art Shames Family Scoring Stage meant turning the studio
into a classroom, a prospect that at first seemed daunting but that Kinhan
quickly embraced. “The students brought a performance atmosphere to the
session that was beautiful,” she says. “Normally recording sessions can
make you incredibly self-conscious, often putting yourself under the
microscope, but knowing there was an audience was really liberating. The
students witnessed great players laying it down right in front of their
eyes, and that made for an inspired environment. The added bonus of
sharing Nancy Wilson's legacy with them was a Sleepin’ Bee we hope to
have reawakened for generations to come.”
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Contact:
Ann Braithwaite (781) 259-9600 |
