Outpost of Dreams

50年以上のキャリアを持つ英国を代表するジャズ・ヴォーカリスト、ノーマ・ウィンストン6年ぶりの新作はUK注目のピアニスト/オルガン奏者、キット・ダウンズとのデュオ作品!

昨年、ドレイクの大ヒット曲「IDGAF (feat. Yeat)」で、1977年の「The Tunnel」というトラックがサンプリングされ話題になったグループ、アジマス (1977年にECMからデビュー) のヴォーカルを務めていたノーマ・ウィンストン。
英国を代表するヴォーカリスト×ECMの次世代を担うピアニストという、ECMならではの世代を超えた強力タッグが、今注目を集める新世代UKジャズ界に一石を投じる。
本作は新世代UKジャズ・シーンにおいても話題となった新進気鋭のピアニスト、キット・ダウンズとのデュオ作品。ジャズ・ヴォーカリストであり作詞家でもあるユニークなアーティストであるノーマは、ダウンズのオリジナル書き下ろし曲に加え、カーラ・ブレイ、ラルフ・タウナー、ジョン・テイラーの楽曲に詩的な感性を発揮した作品で、さらに「Black Is The Colour」、「Rowing Home」という2曲のトラッド曲を新鮮な視点で描いている。
〈パーソネル〉NOrma Winstone(vo) Kit Downes(p)

Outpost of Dreams is the debut collaboration from vocalist/lyricist Norma Winstone and pianist/composer Kit Downes. Both are veteran ECM recordings artists. Winstone hasnt issued a title with the label since 2018s award-winning Descansado: Songs for Films, while Downes, active more recently, released Short Diary with Seb Roachford in 2023. This duo began playing shows together late in 2023 and continued into 2024. Winstone, a seven-decade veteran, has been the talk of Europe since Drake sampled Azimuths (Winstone with Kenny Wheeler and John Taylor) "The Tunnel" for "IDGAF." Among this sets ten tunes are four originals by Downes and Winstone; her lyric contributions extend here to songs by Taylor, Carla Bley, Ralph Towner, and fiddler/composer Aidan ORourke. There are also two folk standards, "Black Is the Color" and "Rowing Home." At this stage of her seven-decade career, Winstone is winning accolades for her writing as much as her supple singing -- her alto instrument is undiminished by time. In opener "El," Downes weaves impressionistic, mysterious chords in the upper-middle register as Winstone wanders with purpose inside and outside his cadences: "Stardust in the night will watch her grow/Soon become aware (constellations stare)/Everything that lives and breathes and loves filling the air…" "Fly the Wind," by Taylor and Winstone, is sprightly; it sounds like a show tune in the singers phrasing, but Downes pianism is rooted in modern jazz. Winstones lyrics for Bleys "Jesus Maria" embrace its mutated two-chord theme and reflect an unknowable Christ figure as he inhabits and transcends time. Her words for Towners iconic "Beneath an Evening Sky" chart the depth and strangeness of a womans perpetual presence in the protagonists wandering, solitary mind. Single "The Steppe" weds classical, jazz, and classic pop as a song of love and longing, offering: "Winds sweep across the plain/Where will I find you again/The path of a shooting star/The heart dare not follow/Im lost in the vastness of you…Im almost submerging/In this lonely outpost of dreams." Downes flows, circles, and swings around and through her delivery. There are few substandard versions of "Black Is the Color." This one, with Downes ghostly, wandering pianism, first excavates, then all but conceals the melody as Winstone delivers this as a tool of discovery: in certain phrases, she pays tribute to Nina Simones stellar recording. Downes is masterful; he never intrudes on Winstones expression yet establishes the piano as a separate lyric voice. The closing traditional sea shanty "Rowing Home" is almost unrecognizable. Downes creates darkly tinged post-bop harmonics under the melody as Winstone improvises inside the words and phrases while changing the tunes shape with her vocalizing. Usually sung by fishermen returning home, this version comes from a bereft protagonist, and it is as poignant as it is resonant. Outpost of Dreams is a quiet, gentle, even tenderly poetic masterpiece that represents music-making as an organic yet adventurous hub of meaning. ~ Thom Jurek