I Remember You...

Album review

Norway's exceptional jazz singer Karin Krog accepts no limits to the use of her voice as a jazz instrument. With a highly personal style, she is equally at home with classic pop standards as well as exploring the depths of avant-garde and free jazz. This all-encompassing approach to the music has taken her into the studio with a wide gamut of artists representing different segments of the music, including John Surman and Archie Shepp on the free jazz side to bop players Dexter Gordon and Kenny Drew. Here she hooks up with cool tenor sax player Warne Marsh and consummate bass player Red Mitchell for a session that straddles both schools of jazz. The play list includes both jazz and pop standards. More to the point, regardless of the nature of the tunes, these three reconstruct them with a modern jazz feel. Marsh opens "I Remember You" on an improvisational line with virtually no reference to the melody. Krog rounds out the exploration of vocal jazz styles with vocalese on "Moody's Mood for Love." Further evidence that this is no ordinary vocal album is found in the length of several of the cuts. Some tracks run more than seven minutes as Krog, Marsh, and Mitchell delve deeply into the heart and soul of these tunes. The presence of Mitchell as one of the two instrumentalists is consistent with Krog's partiality to top-flight bass players. She would later join Mitchell again on record in a duo session, and has collaborated with such other top bass players as Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Arild Andersen, and Steve Swallow. I Remember You is another memorable chapter in the artistic life of a consummate jazz performer and is recommended.

© Dave Nathan /TiVo