Cæcilie Norby - Silent Ways (2013)

It has had a great influence on Cæcilie Norby's musical development and direction that she has landed on the German record label ACT. Her husband, bassist Lars Danielsson has, like several other Swedish jazz musicians, been associated with the company for many years. It is not unusual for the company's artists to recur on each other's records. Cæcilie Norby's second album Silent ways. Polish pianist Leszek Mozdzer, French-Vietnamese guitarist Nguyen Le and Swedish-Turkish drummer Robert Mehmet Ikiz are joined by Danielsson on both cello, bass and acoustic guitar. Mozdzer has had a close working relationship with Danielsson for several years. While Nguyen Le is one of the veterans of ACT Records.  Norby has selected 10 classic pop and Rock Songs of various character. From Bob Dylan's Like a rolling stone to Nine Inch Nails' Hurt. There's Soundgarden's 90s grunge with Black hole sun and Duffy's 2008 pop with Stepping stone. There's Creedence Clearwater Revival and one of my all time favorites, The Temptations' like a Rolling stone, which gets a whole new lease of life in Norby's version, where the classic bass line is removed and replaced with an Eastern European flow. It works surprisingly well, although it must be swallowed that one of the coolest bass riffs in music history has been removed from the track. Norby has also included a couple of Leonard Cohen tracks and a single by Paul Simon on the album.  Norby is probably our best international card in the vocal jazz genre. Her voice is still in a class of its own. She proves this once again to abundance. She is not afraid to draw on the skills of boat pop and classical singing. The plate is quite successful. Especially it is a strength with Mozdzer at the piano and Lê's beautiful guitar. They color the music with personality. If you are a Norby fan, you will be satisfied. Whether Nye Nye will bring new fans back home with the new album is questionable. It's an album that has a lot of potential in Europe. Here she should be able to gain a larger audience, with an album that balances elegantly between pop and art.