Norma Winstone Trio at TD Toronto Jazz Festival at Jazz Bistro

An English singer, a German reedman, an Italian pianist. Sometimes called Distances
(they prefer this), sometimes the Norma Winstone Trio or Norma Winstone’s
Chamber Music, by any name a remarkable group whose intimate performances
encompass a great arc of music. Three adventurous musicians united by a
profound feeling for song. The stark instrumentation – voice, piano, bass clarinet/
soprano sax – seems never to limit their repertoire, but to encourage the players to
explore widely, and to make musical use of the available space.

Jazz ballads, old and new, find their place alongside – for instance – adaptations of...

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An English singer, a German reedman, an Italian pianist. Sometimes called Distances
(they prefer this), sometimes the Norma Winstone Trio or Norma Winstone’s
Chamber Music, by any name a remarkable group whose intimate performances
encompass a great arc of music. Three adventurous musicians united by a
profound feeling for song. The stark instrumentation – voice, piano, bass clarinet/
soprano sax – seems never to limit their repertoire, but to encourage the players to
explore widely, and to make musical use of the available space.

Jazz ballads, old and new, find their place alongside – for instance – adaptations of
Friulian folk songs, and ‘chamber’ pieces influenced by classical or contemporary
composition. Textures, colours and rhythms may be drawn from scattered, surprising
sources: a sudden bright flash of calypso, perhaps, or the hypnotic lulling of an
Armenian cradle song. Winstone, Gesing and Venier have played songs from Cole
Porter to Komitas, borrowed melodies from Satie and Coltrane, culled lyrics from
James Joyce poems and Christina Rosetti nursery rhymes. What they take they make
their own, much of the material they compose themselves, and most of the words are
Norma’s. As both singer and lyricist she has few contemporary peers: her words seem
to float up from the music’s expressive core.

Norma Winstone - Vocals

Glauco Venier - Piano

Klaus Gesing - Bass Clarinet & Soprano Sax

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