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News and Reviews

NOW OUT! January 2008 saw the launch date for Louise's new duo album with the celebrated US pianist, Kirk Lightsey (seen here on the right with Louise and Paul Jolly of 33 Records). The recording, with 33 Records, was made in March. Entitled "Everybody's Song But Our Own" features classic jazz instrumental tunes which singers have embraced by penning the lyric, including: Everybody's Song But My Own (Kenny Wheeler), Footprints (Wayne Shorter), Goodbye Pork Pie Hat (Charles Mingus), The Peacocks (A Timeless Place) (Jimmy Rowles), Ruby, My Dear (Thelonious Monk), You Taught My Heart To Sing (McCoy Tyner).
For more information on Kirk Lightsey - www.sunnysiderecords.com and www.answers.com/topic/kirk-lightsey

This is what the reviewers have to say:
Her fourth release on 33 Jazz sees the well-known vocalist Louise Gibbs teaming up with the great US (now Paris-based) pianist Kirk Lightsey. Recorded over two days and consisting entirely of first takes, the 11-track collection scores highly for its immediacy and freshness.

Apart from a trio of songs from the Great American Songbook – classy interpretations of ‘Spring is Here’, ‘Never Let Me Go’ and ‘Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most’ – this meeting of musical minds focuses on classic jazz instrumental including Kenny Wheeler’s title track (lyrics: Norma Winstone) and McCoy Tyner’s ‘You Taught My Heart To Sing’ (lyrics: Dianne Reeves). Sharing an “irresistibly melodic angularity”, as Gibbs puts it, each song presents its own technical challenge. She meets them all with creativity and charisma.
Lightsey is a supportive, inventive and always creative accompanist, able to conjure up a near orchestral range of sonorities from his grand piano. For playing of great expressive warmth, listen to the impressionistic wash of sound he creates for ‘A Timeless Place’. Peter Quinn, Jazzwise Magazine, June 2008.
For this album, its name adapted from the celebrated Kenny Wheeler composition, singer Louise Gibbs and pianist Kirk Lightsey have taken their material from modern jazz classics (Wayne Shorter's 'Footprints', Charles Mingus's 'Goodbye Pork Pie Hat', Thelonious Monk's 'Ruby My Dear' etc.) and the odd standard (three, coincidentally, spring-themed: Michel Legrand's 'You Must Believe in Spring', the Wolf/Landesman evergreen 'Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most', Rodgers and Hart's 'Spring is Here'), but unlike many such projects, this is a genuine duo album rather than one featuring singer-plus-accompanist. Partly, this is due to Gibbs's predilection for scatting, which results in the album's wordless musical content being unusually high, but it is also attributable to Lightsey's sheer skill and imaginative inventiveness, which has meant that his elegant trademark mix of power and grace is everywhere apparent. Gibbs's voice is an unaffected, natural one, her confession of emotion straightforwardly candid, her trust in the power of her judiciously selected material apparent in the ease of her delivery. In tone and timbre, her closest vocal equivalent is probably Norma Winstone, whose lyrics to Jimmy Rowles's 'Peacocks' and to the (near) title-track Gibbs delivers with a touching unfussiness that recalls their writer; other highlights include a visit to Dianne Reeves's lyric for McCoy Tyner's 'You Taught My Heart to Sing' and a subtly affecting version of the aforementioned Legrand classic. Overall, an album infused with Gibbs's infectious respect for both the songs and – amusingly documented in the false start to 'Spring is Here' – the playing of Lightsey. Chris Parker, Vortex Club Website
2008 HOWDEN JAZZ SINGERS' FESTIVAL - 17 & 18 MAY. The festival has now been and gone, but the memory lingers on.... report to come soon.
If you made it to the first Hear & Now Festival of Jazz Singing in Howden, Yorkshire, May, 2007 you'll have been impressed by the array and depth of British vocal talent to be heard. Featured performers were: Tina May (with Nikki Iles), Ian Shaw, Liane Carroll and The Passion, Pete Churchill, Kari Bleivik, Rosie Brown, Jenny Smith, Julie Edwards, and Sarah Bennett, not to mention the Louise Gibbs Quartet (with Jonathan Gee, Steve Rose, and Winston Clifford). Performances were of a consistently stellar standard. Only the blazing Liane Carroll on brilliant form or a beguilingly crooning Pete Churchill could convince you that it was worthwhile to stay in the darkened indoors on a sunny saturday afternoon. Anita Wardell stunned us with her command of scat improvisation, Kari Bleivik pointed us to the future in her adventure with voice and technology. Sunday night found me in inspired company to produce a dream set with Jonathan, Steve and Winston. Tina May and Nikki Iles, once again, revealed the subtleties a long-standing duo partnership could bring to the standard repertoire, and Ian Shaw ended the weekend with his customary witty musical tour de force, bringing the audience to its feet. One important outcome of the festival, certainly from the singers' point of view, was to get to hear each other and hang out together. As another festival is planned for 2008, it looks likely that the hospitable town of Howden is set to become the Hay-on-Wye of Jazz Singing. Don't miss out next year! Tina May, Ian Shaw, and Nikki Iles at Howden
Aside from performances and workshops at the Hear & Now Festival, Jazz Factor - a showcase-masterclass for emerging talent from the colleges - was an innovation to the festival format. Jazz Factor gave us four accomplished performances from the upcoming generation of singers: (pictured below) Emilia Martensson, Fini Bearman, Cherie Gears, and Genevieve Arnold. It was interesting that three out of the four singers cited Joni Mitchell as one their prime influences. All singers to listen out for!

Teaching: Jazz Singing and Improvisation Workshop. Next jazz improvisation workshops in Leeds, 14 June 2008.
Private Teaching by appointment - louise@jazzmine.co.uk

Radio: Hear Louise's contribution to BBC Radio 4's new 5-part series: The Singer Not the Song - 9 January 2007.