Jeanette Lindström In The Middle Of This Riddle AMCD 909 Releasedate: 2005-05-11 The much-longed for new album from Jeanette Lindström is finally here! In The Middle Of This Riddle is the follow-up to the popular and critically acclaimed, domestically as well as internationally, album Walk from 2003. In The Middle Of This Riddle consists exclusively of original music, this time Jeanette Lindström has also written all the lyrics (but one by Marshall Glover) herself. On In The Middle Of This Riddle we once again meet Jeanette’s tightly knit band from Walk, Staffan Svensson, trumpet, Peter Nylander, guitars, Daniel Karlsson, piano and keyboards, Christian Spering, double bass and Peter Danemo, drums. Also heard on one of the tracks is a string trio comprising Jonas Lindgren, violin, Örjan Högberg, viola and Mattias Helldén, cello. Co-produced by Jeanette Lindström and Amigo A&R Göran Petersson, the new album, with a few exceptions (two demo tracks that made it it all the way), was recorded at the famed Atlantis studio with legendary recording engineer and studio boss Janne Hansson, known for his work with acts like Esbjörn Svensson Trio, behind the mixing console. Since the French release of Walk, where the album was met with fabulous reviews, France has been something of a second home to Jeanette and her band with frequent club as well as festival gigs. Jeanette and her band return to Paris for a string of clubs gigs and show-cases a week before the French release of In The Middle Of This Riddle which is set for May 27. The album will soon also be available in the USA, Canada and Japan. A tentative German releasedate is set for July. Through the years, Jeanette Lindström has toured extensively in Sweden, the Nordic countries and the rest of Europe. She has also performed in Mozambique, Japan, the USA and Canada. Jeanette Lindström is one of the most established Swedish jazz singers. Since her debut in the beginning of the 1990s she has led groups of her own, but has also appeared as guest soloist in smaller jazz groups as well as big bands, chamber orchestras and symphony orchestras. TRACKLISTING 1 Always 2 From This Tower 3 The World 4 You Could Rely On Me 5 End 6 Leaf 7 Too 8 Going Up 9 Here 10 When Things Get Real 11 Be There 12 Too (take 1) JEANETTE LINDSTRÖM Biography 2005 Jeanette Lindström is the jazz singer that prompted legendary producer Quincy Jones to voice the portentous words: “An old soul in young singer's body.” And also: “She really understands what jazz is all about!” The year was 1995 and Jeanette Lindström made her major breakthrough – on a broad front. She is first and foremost a jazz singer, but at the same time has never been opposed to stepping outside of the borders of jazz. Her latest accomplishment is “In The Middle Of This Riddle”, a CD that once again proves that she never hesitates to move on and explore new ground. As always, Jeanette Lindström sings with a voice that vibrates with the strength of a tigress, the yearnings of a young woman and the fervor of a mature woman. Or in other words: a voice with light, air and a bit of mustiness to it. On “In The Middle Of This Riddle”, she and her musicians have created and multifaceted atmosphere where the frail and the strong melt together just below the boiling point. Tones from a piano and an electric guitar fluctuate and linger through most of the songs; behind them, a bass and drums throb with an ease that leaves room for airiness without compromising the pulse. And every now and then a trumpet comes to the front; on occasion she is alone with a piano or a collection of strings. The songs are like a journey between feelings and expressions, yet they are still bound together like different entranceways into the same underlying atmosphere. Following the melodies are lyrics that underscore life’s ups and downs with a few choice words. She starts off with the equally captivating as it is soul-funky “Always”, continues the voyage with the rapidly pulsating “From This Tower”, then takes the tempo down in the fluctuating minimalism of “The World”, to next arrive at a naked meditative state in “You Could Rely On Me”. After the sense of loss in the self-revealing “End”, she moves on to exultant, cacophonic blue skies in “Going Up”, she sways in a pleasing, waltz-jazz tempo in “Here” and proves herself to be a full-fledged singer-songwriter in “Leaf”. Time and again, her musicians paint an expansive panorama. For Jeanette Lindström doesn’t allow the total focus to be centered on herself, she leaves room for her musicians in solos that either develop or change, but constantly push on ahead. “In The Middle Of This Riddle” moves from strength to strength as she builds upon the experiences from her previous CD, the critically acclaimed “Walk”, which she begins with the morning-dreamlike “This Time”, followed by the irresistible, captivating title song, “Walk”. Songs light as a feather and heavy as lead shift to “Trains & Boats & Planes” and move with unhesitating promptness to “What Remains”. In “That Sorry School”, she combines an echo of Joni Mitchell’s sophisticated elegance with a shimmering voyage through space, while in “Where is Wolfgang?” she opens the door to the cabaret theater's mixture of seriousness and humor. “…so beautiful, it takes your breath away,” was an opinion printed in Dagens Nyheter. But Jeanette Lindström made her debut back in 1995 with the “Jazz In Sweden” record of the year, “Another country”. Even then, she displayed a striking musical courage and maturity. Frank Loesser's “Never will I marry” reveals her feeling for musical architecture in just a few seconds. One by one, she turns the attention over to the musicians after first having sung a duet with the drummer. She does an intimate interpretation of Radka Toneff’s “It Don’t Come Easy” and presents an escalating drama in Kurt Weill’s “Lonely House”. Jeanette Lindström the composer emerges in the original songs “Another country”, which, based on the melody, could easily have been written by Burt Bacharach, and “All the world's a stage”, with qualities reminiscent of Miles Davis’ “Kind of blue” period. “This music makes no apologies”, “ ... a bold musician...” daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter wrote. On the follow-up album, “I saw you” from 1997, Jeanette Lindström chose a partially different path. She not only composed most of the music herself, more attention was given to the lyricist who goes by the same name. But the emphasis given to the importance of the words didn’t mean that the gently multifaceted music was neglected. The title song “I saw you” lives its life in the borderland between soul and airy jazz. The up-tempo “He says” places the singer in the spotlight, while “My hands” reveal her instinctive feeling for blue tones mixed together with a fragile elegance. “There is no doubt that she has the loveliest voice of all the young Swedish popular vocalists today,” was printed in Svenska Dagbladet. Her third CD, “Sinatra/Weill” from 1999, once again displayed another facet of the versatile Jeanette Lindström. The focus here is on Jeanette Lindström the soloist. Set against the backdrop of new arrangements by Kenny Werner or Tim Hagans, she provides deeply personal interpretations of classics either written by Kurt Weill or performed by Frank Sinatra, all to the accompaniment of the Norrbotten Big Band and the Norrbotten Chamber Orchestra. With her versions of “Speak Low”, “All My Tomorrows” and “The Lady Is A Tramp”, she has come quite a way from the format of the acoustic quintet that she cultivated on both her debut album “Another country” and its follow-up, “I saw you”. Alongside of her own quintet, Jeanette Lindström has also appeared in a number of other musical contexts. As a member of the group Once, which included musicians such as bassist Anders Jormin, she improvised according to the principal “play what ever you want and let things happen as they will”. The CD “Once” from 1997 provided a clear sample of Jeanette Lindström’s desire and ability to sing without using words. But then she does consider the voice to be one instrument among all the others. Duo record “Feathers” from 2000 distinguishes itself – naturally – in a marked manner from the previous ones. Together with pianist Steve Dobrogosz, she interprets both jazz ballads and pop songs that have had their electric ornamentation removed, as well as original songs that fit in perfectly along side of “The Look Of Love”, “Both Sides, Now”, “Almost Blue” by composers like Burt Bacharach, Joni Mitchell and Elvis Costello. It is a scope that duo Jeanette Lindström and Steve Dobrogosz sensitively reinforce by capturing the dynamics in the small details, and not least in the pauses between them. But Jeanette Lindström’s history is not synonymous with the records she’s made or performed on. To an even greater extent she is a touring artist who has been traveling all over Sweden and other parts of the world since she was 16. She has performed in most of the large and small jazz clubs and concert halls throughout the country. She has participated in festivals and performed on radio and TV. She has toured in the other Scandinavian countries, Japan and has also appeared in England, France, Belgium, Mozambique and the USA. Besides the quintet, she has, throughout the years, worked with orchestra leaders, arrangers, composers and musicians like Bengt-Arne Wallin, Slide Hampton, Georg Riedel, Tim Hagans, Kenny Werner, Anders Jormin, Audun Kleive, Palle Danielsson, Bobo Stenson, Lars Jansson, Lars Danielsson, Fredrik Norén, Esbjörn Svensson and Magnus Lindgren, to name a few. Jeanette Lindström has also made a few excursions across the borders into other genres, but in “her own way”. She has performed newly written art music by Per Mårtensson together with KammarensembleN, “Barfotasånger” by Allan Pettersson with kammarorkestern Nau, songs by Satie, songs by Burt Bacharach, and above all music by Kurt Weill. She has performed with such orchestras as Linköping’s and Kristianstad’s Blåsarsymfoniker, Västerås Sinfonietta, Uppsala Kammarsolister and others, and she has collaborated with conductors such as Michael Bartosch, Petter Sundkvist, Hans Ek, Sonny Jansson and Staffan Larson. But jazz has always been “the main thing”, and writing lyrics and music has been as important as performing. When asked what she feels the essence of jazz to be, she answers without hesitation: Communication. Between the musicians on stage and between the musicians and the audience. Jazz is also a state of being, with room for the emotions that words can’t always capture – but which can be expressed in music. Besides, she points out, jazz is Exciting: No one knows where an improvisation might lead to... Almost a decade has passed since Jeanette Lindström made her recording debut with “Another country” and was specially selected to conclude the Nobel Dinner with a song by Bellman, together with Stockholms Studentsångare. At that time she was new to the public eye, but her story begins before that. Jeanette Lindström was born in 1971 and grew up in the small town of Ås, outside of the Jämtländska metropolis of Östersund. Her home was filled with music. Her father was a drummer who had a steadily growing record collection, with a preponderance of jazz and 60’s soul. Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Miles Davis and many others were crowded together on the record shelves. So it was no wonder that seven-year old Jeanette “decided” that Miles Davis was her idol. In the beginning it was the piano at her grandparent’s house that fascinated her with its magical mix of black and white. At first, Jeanette picked out songs by ear, later on she learned to read notes under a teacher’s guidance. Shostakovich became one of her big favorites, but even at a young age she began to set her own music to rhymes and phrases she found. And of course she sang, unaccompanied or along with the records she played. And she continued listening to jazz. Miles’ classic “Kind of blue” became an early and inexhaustible source of inspiration, in which new dimensions could always be found. Keith Jarrett’s Nordic Quartet with Jan Garbarek and Palle Danielsson left an unforgettable impression, as did Miles’ 60’s quintet with Wayne Shorter. She gained experience of touring, carrying instruments and rigging and striking a stage by following her father when he was out playing. So it was no musical novice who arrived at the music high school in Östersund. She there became the organist in the cover-band Zeg Deg, she played piano in some small jazz bands, electric bass in others, jammed here and there. On top of everything, she got to be on stage and started to earn money from music. During these years, Jeanette Lindström the singer began to take over – in public. The path to becoming a professional musician was set. And she continued to listen and learn. Apart from jazz there was also room for soul and pop. She started listening to Kate Bush, XTC, Prince and a young Michael Jackson. To name a few. She penetrated deeper into Shostakovich’s universe but also paid attention to other composers. Some solely for the purpose of study, others became an integral part of her, like Brazilian music with its abundance of expansive and beautiful emotions. Milton Nascimento is and will remain a big favorite. After high school there was a year spent at Birka College, a couple of years studying jazz in Skurup, where she helped launch the quartet, Pictures. Then suddenly it’s 1993, and Jeanette Lindström steps down off the train in Stockholm to take her place at The Royal College of Music’s individual study program. The year after she formed the Jeanette Lindström Quintet, 1995 she made her recording debut… Johan Scherwin |
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