When it comes to vocal albums, Blue Note Records doesn’t always color within the lines. The label, with its relatively undiluted roster of jazz instrumentalists, will otherwise often promote singer-songwriters from the pop, soul, and country arenas. (Elvis Costello, Annie Lennox, Willie Nelson, and Roseanne Cash all appear in the label’s catalog.) This year, two new Blue Note releases enhance the label’s eclectic vocal palette even further.
Danish singer Agnes Obel joins Blue Note with the release of Myopia, her first solo album on the imprint but her fourth in toto. For each of these, the singer followed the same extreme creative process: She holed up in her Berlin home studio to write, perform, and record the tracks in isolation. She records mainly at night, she says—a habit that leads her into some darkly contemplative places. Hence titles like “Broken Sleep,” an intimate alt rock tune with thrumming strings, haunting vocals, and eerie poetry. Or “Island of Doom,” an oddly soothing conflation of angelic layered choruses, pizzicato cello lines, and apocalyptic lyrics.
Like Theo Bleckmann, Obel uses ambient sound as a backdrop for beseeching, internally focused vocals; set up this way, the voice becomes a vehicle of unadulterated emotion (in Obel’s case that’s loneliness, grief, and mourning). It’s on instrumentals like “Roscian” and “Parliament of Owls,” however, that the structure of Obel’s music becomes clearer. Repetitive phrases provide a rhythm, and slow harmonic developments create narrative movement. There’s a loveliness to this structure that belies the dystopian world view Obel is describing—and therefore something restorative amidst all the sadness.
Singer/pianist Kandace Springs gives a shout-out to the singers who inspired her propitious career on The Women Who Raised Me, her fourth Blue Note album—this one comprising a dozen seminal songs from the Nashville vocalist’s formative years. The honorees here represent several roots-derived styles: classic jazz (Ella Fitzgerald, Carmen McRae), contemporary jazz (Diana Krall, Norah Jones), blues (Nina Simone, Billie Holiday), pop (Dusty Springfield, Sade, Bonnie Raitt, Roberta Flack), neo-soul (Lauryn Hill), and Brazilian (Astrud Gilberto).
In Springs’ performance of these songs you do hear the echoes of these vocal influencers. The laid-back phrasing like McRae on “Solitude,” the emotional rawness like Billie Holiday on “Strange Fruit” or Sade on “Pearls,” the utter soulfulness like Hill on “Ex-Factor.” But Springs—no imitator—claims them in her own space.
To define that space, she uses a standard, mostly acoustic, rhythm section as an offset for her R&B-ornamented vocal lines. Adding flair to her lineup are several notable guests artists—among them bassist Christian McBride and saxophonist David Sanborn. But the standout is Springs’ duet with fellow Blue Note artist Norah Jones on a dusky, eloquent “Angel Eyes.” They draw new lines with this one.
Myopia: Camera’s Rolling, Broken Sleep, Island Of Doom, Roscian, Myopia, Drosera, Can’t Be, Parliament Of Owls, Promise Keeper, Won’t You Call Me (40:00)
Personnel: Agnes Obel, vocals, piano, keyboards, synths, beats, and rhythms; John Corban, violin; Kristina Koropecki, cello.
The Women Who Raised Me: Devil May Care, Angel Eyes, I Put A Spell On You, Pearls, Ex-Factor, I Can’t Make You Love Me, Gentle Rain, Solitude, The Nearness Of You, What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?, Killing Me Softly, Strange Fruit (53:12)
Personnel: Kandace Springs, piano, keyboards, vocals; Scott Coley, bass; Steve Cardenas, guitar; Clarence Penn, drums; Christian McBride, bass; Norah Jones, vocals, piano; David Sanborn, alto saxophone; Avishai Cohen trumpet; Elena Pinderhughes, flute; Chris Potter, tenor saxophone.
(Reprinted from the April 2020 issue of Downbeat magazine)