Although there are only two performers on this thought-provoking ECM album there is so much going on that it is nigh on impossible to fully comprehend the meaningful music being created.
That Norma Winstone has the purist toned voice of any singer on today's jazz scene is a fact, a done deal. Despite having been active as a vocalist/lyricist for circa 60 years, unlike many singers, the voice has never lost its signature purity or the pitch-perfect delivery that is rarely heard outside of the Royal Opera House whilst her lyrics are poetry of the highest order.
With Downes, who stepped in when her regular pianist, Nikki Iles, wasn't available, Winstone found new challenges. Challenges that took them down previously unexplored avenues uncertain where they would lead but with a sense of adventure that, in the end, took them to the Outpost of Dreams - at least I think it did. How could it not with two free spirits such as these?
The material is varied. Words by Winstone, music by Downes apart from those compositions by John Taylor, Carla Bley, Ralph Towner, Aidan O'Rourke and a couple of traditional folk songs.
Outpost of Dreams isn't an album to play in the background as your guests arrive. It's jazz lieder and demanding of as much undivided attention as anything by Schubert from a couple of hundred years earlier. Lance
For more details of the individual tracks go HERE.
El; Fly the Wind; Jesus Maria; Beneath an Evening Sky; Outpost of Dreams; The Steppe; Nocturne; Black is the Colour; In Search of Sleep; Rowing Home.
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