(UMO Jazz orchestra [17 pieces] cond. by Kari Heinila; Kenny Wheeler, trumpet & flugelhorn; Norma Winstone, vocals)
This very international recording is a collaboration between Finland’s flagship jazz band, the UMO Jazz Orchestra, the Dutch jazz label A-Records, the two British artists Kenny Wheeler and Norma Winstone. And it follows on a similar project from 1998 which had different guest soloists involved, and is also the third time that both Wheeler and Winstone performed with the Finnish orchestra.
All the music was composed and arranged by Kenny Wheeler and on the two vocal numbers with actual lyrics (the rest are vocalese), Duncan Lamont wrote the lyrics for one and Ms. Winstone did the lyrics for the other. The concert – which was recorded at a live presentations – opens with the One More Time Suite in four movements, of which the third features Norma Winstone’s familiar voice on Lamont’s lyrics Only a Dream. The fourth movement has a great guitar solo by Markku Kanerva, followed by Norma and some of the band members in a vocalese chorus, then a lively idea-trade between Wheeler and soprano saxist Jouni Jarvela.
Later in the program Blue for Lou involves some nice interchange between Wheeler’s flugelhorn and Jarvela’s also sax. The ten-minute W.W. closer to the concert involves solos by at least six of the band members plus Wheeler. Wheeler’s music is in the not-quite-atonal-but-not-strong-on-melody bag, though the superb playing by all concerned and the intriguing blends of instrumental sections, solos and vocals almost made me forget that. The precise two-channel sonics also helped – though I was wishing my AV preamp allowed feeding them thru ProLogic II for surround, which it doesn’t.
TrackList: The One More Time Suite; Sea Lady; Three for D’reen/Blue for Lou; W.W.
– John Henry