Luck Child by Fay Claassen

Fay Claassen

Luck Child

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Challenge Records
UPC: 0608917342529
Catnr: CR 73425
Release date: 06 January 2017
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Label
Challenge Records

UPC
0608917342529

Catalogue number
CR 73425

Release date
06 January 2017

"Two Edisons for Fay Claassen."

Jazzism, 17-8-2018

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

Press

About the album

With this album, Luck Child, a long-standing wish of Dutch jazz singer Fay Claassen is fulfilled. It is an ode to youth and beauty with a mix of old and new songs. This compilation consists mostly of songs that she has been singing for many years but has never before recorded. Famous and beloved songs like Paul McCartney’s “Blackbird,” Paul Simon’s “One Trick Pony,” Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child,” and songs by Burt Bacharach, and Ennio Morricone are presented alongside new compositions by Paul Heller. This is Fay Claassen’s most personal and most emotional release to date, and she will touch the listener’s heart with her beautiful voice that goes straight to the soul.

Luck Child is het meest persoonlijke en meest emotionele album van Edison-winnares Fay Claassen. Met dit 8ste album, onder eigen regie, interpreteert de internationaal befaamde zangeres op haar eigen onnavolgbare manier haar absolute lievelingsliedjes, zoals Paul McCartney’s Blackbird, Paul Simon’s One Trick Pony, maar ook Cinema Paradiso van Ennio Morricone en Billie Holiday’s God Bless The Child.

Es erscheint, als die natürlichste Sache der Welt, wenn die niederländische Sängerin Fay Claassen mit ihrer berührenden Stimme Standards, Eigenkompositionen oder Popsongs zum Leben erweckt, wenn phänomenale Improvisation und perfekte Intonation wie ein Kinderspiel daher kommen und sich mit emotionaler Tiefe und einer großen Portion musikalischer Erfahrung vereinen. Mit ihrem unverkennbaren Timbre gehört sie zu den großen (Frauen)stimmen des europäischen Jazz, kann sich zig Auszeichnungen rühmen, darunter eine Goldene Schallplatte und den Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik. Die Liste der Musiker, mit denen sie seit den 90er Jahren zusammen arbeitet, liest sich wie das „Who is Who“ des Jazz: Toots Thielemans, Mike Stern, Vince Mendoza, Paquito D’Rivera, The Metropole Orchestra, James Carter, Tom Harrell, die mehrmals Grammy-ausgezeichnete WDR Big Band, Bob Brookmeyer und viele andere mehr.
„Luck Child“ ist wohl das emotionalste Album der niederländischen Künstlerin, ein Album mit dem sich Fay Claassen einen lang gehegten Herzenswunsch erfüllt hat.
Allein mit Piano, Gitarre und Kontrabass (der Grazer Jazz-Piano Professor Olaf Polziehn, der Gitarrist des legendären niederländischen „Metropole Orchestra“ Peter Tiehuis und der NDR Big Band Bassist Ingmar Heller) öffnet Fay Claassen die reichhaltige Schatzkiste ihrer ganz persönlichen „Heart-Songs“.
Da kommen Songs zum Vorschein wie Paul McCartney’s „Blackbird“, Paul Simon’s „One Trick Pony” , aber auch Duke Ellington’s „In A Sentimental Mood”, Fred Hersch’s „Song Of Life“ und Ennio Morricone’s „Cinema Paradiso“. Selbst der amerikanische Traditional „Oh Shenandoah“ entfaltet sich ganz selbstverständlich wie zu Fay’s eigenem Song. Ihr ungezwungener Umgang mit den Songs, ihre musikalische Neugierde und Abenteuerlust vereint Jazz mit Pop mit Filmmusik, Great American Songbook und Eigenkompositionen zu einem unverkennbar eigenständigen Gesamtsound.
Der Titelsong „Luck Child“, komponiert von der aussergewöhnlichen Gitarristin und Komponistin Leni Stern, katapultiert uns nicht nur durch den von der irischen Schriftstellerin Catriona O’Daly für Fay geschriebenen Text direkt in die wundersame irische Mythologie.
Ein weiters Highlight ist sicher auch die Komposition „Fay“ des legendären Trompeter und Komponisten Kenny Wheeler, die er kurz vor seinem Tod für Fay Claassen geschaffen hat.
Michael Abene, langjähriger Chefdirigent der WDR Big Band, guter Freund und musikalischer Weggefährte Fay Claassen’s, hat der Niederländerin ein ganz spezielles Arrangement von Duke Ellington’s „In A Sentimental Mood“ auf den Leib geschneidert und so einem der wohl meist gesungenen Balladen-Klassiker wieder völlig neues Leben eingehaucht. Alle weiteren Arrangements stammen aus der Feder von Ehemann, Co-Producer und WDR Big Band Saxofonist Paul Heller.
Mit „Luck Child“ stellt Fay Claassen einmal mehr ihre ganz besondere Gabe unter Beweis, den Zuhörer mit ihrem Gesang nicht nur zu berühren, sondern immer direkt ins Herz zu treffen.

Artist(s)

Fay Claassen (vocals)

Fay Claassen (vocals) Fay recorded her own albums together with many international musicians such as Mike Stern, Kenny Werner, Toots Thielemands, and she was invited as soloist for many CD recordings by the WDR Big Band, Bob Brookmeyers New Art Orchestra, the Millennium Jazz Orchestra and the Danish Radio Big Band.
She cooperated with well known conducters and arrangers such as Jim Mc Neely, Vince Mendoza and Michael Abene. Fay was rewarded with The Golden Record for her double album Two Portraits of Chet Baker. Jazz Times USA wrote about this cd: ’An Astonishing Album’, Down Beat: ‘A mega-production with extremely solo contributions’.
In the Winners Poll of All About Jazz USA the album was proclaimed as ‘Best Vocal Album of the Year’. Moreover, for other albums Fay received a Grammy longlistnomination and an Edison Award. In 2011 her succesfully cd SING! with the WDR Big Band and the WDR Rundfunk Orchester conducted and arranged by Michael Abene was presented. As guest soloist Fay was often invited by the Metropole Orkest and Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw. Her effortless skill of improvisation not only brought her on stages in Europe, but also in Japan, China and the U.S.A.

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Paul Heller (clarinet)

Paul Heller is a WDR Big Band saxophonist and the artistic director of his own concert series 'Next Level Jazz' in Cologne.

Paul Heller is a WDR Big Band saxophonist and the artistic director of his own concert series "Next Level Jazz" in Cologne.

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Ingmar Heller (bass)

Peter Tiehuis (guitar)

Peter Tiehuis (1956) combined a classical study at the Conservatory of Twente in Enschede, a jazz study at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague with an extensive stage experience in rock and blues bands which enabled him to play almost any kind of music. He is a member the Metropole Orchestra since 1996.

Peter Tiehuis (1956) combined a classical study at the Conservatory of Twente in Enschede, a jazz study at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague with an extensive stage experience in rock and blues bands which enabled him to play almost any kind of music. He is a member the Metropole Orchestra since 1996.

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Olaf Polziehn (piano)

Composer(s)

Paul Heller (clarinet)

Paul Heller is a WDR Big Band saxophonist and the artistic director of his own concert series 'Next Level Jazz' in Cologne.

Paul Heller is a WDR Big Band saxophonist and the artistic director of his own concert series "Next Level Jazz" in Cologne.

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Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington influenced millions of people both around the world and at home. He gave American music its own sound for the first time. In his fifty year career, he played over 20,000 performances in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East as well as Asia. Simply put, Ellington transcends boundaries and fills the world with a treasure trove of music that renews itself through every generation of fans and music-lovers. His legacy continues to live onand will endure for generations to come. Winton Marsalis said it best when he said 'His music sounds like America.' Because of the unmatched artistic heights to which he soared, no one deserved the phrase “beyond category” more than Ellington, for it aptly describes his life as well. He was...

Simply put, Ellington transcends boundaries and fills the world with a treasure trove of music that renews itself through every generation of fans and music-lovers. His legacy continues to live onand will endure for generations to come. Winton Marsalis said it best when he said "His music sounds like America." Because of the unmatched artistic heights to which he soared, no one deserved the phrase “beyond category” more than Ellington, for it aptly describes his life as well. He was most certainly one of a kind that maintained a llifestyle with universal appeal which transcended countless boundaries.

Duke Ellington is best remembered for the over 3000 songs that he composed during his lifetime. His best known titles include; "It Don't Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Swing", "Sophisticated Lady", "Mood Indigo", “Solitude", "In a Mellotone",and "Satin Doll". The most amazing part about Ellington was the most creative while he was on the road. It was during this time when he wrote his most famous piece, "Mood Indigo"which brought him world wide fame.

When asked what inspired him to write, Ellington replied, "My men and my race are the inspiration of my work. I try to catch the character and mood and feeling of my people".

Duke Ellington's popular compositions set the bar for generations of brilliant jazz, pop, theatre and soundtrack composers to come. While these compositions guarantee his greatness, whatmakes Duke an iconoclastic genius, and an unparalleled visionary, what has granted him immortality are his extended suites. From 1943's Black, Brown and Beige to 1972's The Uwis Suite, Duke used the suite format to give his jazz songs a far more empowering meaning, resonance and purpose: to exalt, mythologize and re-contextualize the African-American experience on a grand scale.

Duke Ellington was partial to giving brief verbal accounts of the moods his songs captured. Reading those accounts is like looking deep into the background of an old photo of New York and noticing the lost and almost unaccountable details that gave the city its character during Ellington's heyday, which began in 1927 when his band made the Cotton Club its home.''The memory of things gone,'' Ellington once said, ''is important to a jazz musician,'' and the stories he sometimes told about his songs are the record of those things gone. But what is gone returns, its pulse kicking, when Ellington's music plays, and never mind what past it is, for the music itself still carries us forward today.

Duke Ellington was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1966. He was later awarded several other prizes, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969, and the Legion of Honor by France in 1973, the highest civilian honors in each country. He died of lung cancer and pneumonia on May 24, 1974, a month after his 75th birthday, and is buried in theBronx, in New York City. At his funeral attendedby over 12,000 people at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Ella Fitzgerald summed up the occasion, "It's a very sad day...A genius has passed."

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Paul McCartney

Ennio Morricone

With the soundtracks for well-known movies such as A Fistful Of Dollars (1965), The Good The Bad And The Ugly (1966) en The Untouchables (1987), Ennio Morricone established himself as one of the best film composers of his generation. The Italian was born in 1928 in Rome and turned out to be gifted at an early age: he wrote his first composition when he was only six years old. (Source: Muziekweb.nl)

With the soundtracks for well-known movies such as A Fistful Of Dollars (1965), The Good The Bad And The Ugly (1966) en The Untouchables (1987), Ennio Morricone established himself as one of the best film composers of his generation. The Italian was born in 1928 in Rome and turned out to be gifted at an early age: he wrote his first composition when he was only six years old.
(Source: Muziekweb.nl)

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Fred Hersch

Burt Bacharach

Cedar Walton

Paul Simon

Kenny Wheeler

Jazz trumpeter and flügelhornist Kenny Wheeler was one of the most advanced voices on his instrument. Blessed with a full, lovely tone and an astounding range, Wheeler sounded equally at home in fiery free jazz explorations or softer, more lyrical post-bop meditations. Wheeler was born in 1930 in Toronto, Ontario, and began playing trumpet at age 12. After studying at Toronto's Royal Conservatory, he moved to London in 1952, where he gigged with swing and dance bands. He appeared with John Dankworth's orchestra at the 1959 Newport Festival and remained with that group until 1965. In 1966,Wheeler discovered free jazz, and, fascinated, joined John Stevens' Spontaneous Music Ensemblefor the next four years. In addition, he played jazz-rock fusion with the Mike Gibbs Orchestra from 1969-1975, and joined Tony Oxley's sextet (along with free jazz giants like Derek Bailey and Evan Parker) from 1969-1972. Through the latter, Wheeler was invited to join German pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach's groundbreaking free jazz big band the Globe Unity Orchestra in 1970, an association Wheeler maintained for years to come.
During the first half of the '70s, Wheeler played with Anthony Braxton, which became his primary focus. In 1975, he signed with the ECM label and recorded the well-received Gnu High, which established him as a solo artist of note; the following year, he left Braxton and joined the trio Azimuth. Wheelerturned out a series of excellent ECM albums, including 1977'sDeer Wan and 1983's Double, Double You (that year,Wheeler also began a four-year run with the Dave Holland Quintet). Several more generally fine outings followed in the '90s, including the ECM dates Music for Large and Small Ensembles and The Widow in the Window (both recorded in 1990), plus other recordings for Justin Time and Soul Note later in the decade. During the 2000s and 2010s, he recorded several dates for CAM Jazz, including 2008's Other People with the Hugo Wolf String Quartet and 2011's One of Many with Steve Swallow. Wheeler died on September 18, 2014 after a brief illness. His final studio session, the Manfred Eicher-produced Songs for Quintet, was released in 2015 on what would have been Wheeler's 85th birthday.

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Leni Stern

Arthur Herzog Jr.

Press

Two Edisons for Fay Claassen.
Jazzism, 17-8-2018

Jazz singer Fay Claassen is Harpers Bazaar Woman of the Week.
Harpers Bazaar, 20-7-2018

You could characterize the album as a easy-listening album with quality.
Jazzmozaiek, 30-6-2017

Dutch jazz vocalist Fay Claassen gives listeners to reconsider familiar pop songs in new settings on Luck Child (Challenge).
baltimoreoutloud.com, 23-6-2017

Warm toned vocalist Fay Claassen mixes tradition with modern on this album that puts a fresh coat of paint on a variety of tunes.
Jazz Weekly, 22-6-2017

I think it’s fair to say though that it wasn’t only the refreshments that were cool on Friday night as the crystal clear voice of Dutch Jazz Lady Fay Claassen, with a world class backing band to guide it, headed like an exocet missile straight into our ears and clean through to our hearts.
3songsbonn, 18-6-2017

Simply fantastic: Fay Claassen with band feat. Paul Heller at the Schumannfest Bonn
JazzandRock, 17-6-2017

This Dutch singer has a beautiful voice, perfectly chooses existing pieces. ....when she sings, it's perfect!
Le Soir, 17-5-2017

Yes, it has already traveled the road this Korean, French singer. With her amazing vocal qualities and the art of re-interpreting hits. Don't t forget her warm and often soft voice, bringing the music of the artists to a higher level.
Le Soir, 17-5-2017

As a singer, Claassen is simultaneously cool and warm. It’s a winning combination. She brings her own personality to familiar numbers like “God Bless The Child.” Claassen makes the traditional “Oh Shenandoah” sound fresh and modern.
Pop Culture Classics , 01-5-2017

She closes the disc with a wordlessly dreamy "Cinema Paradiso" that beautifully captures this fine singer in full flight.
All about Jazz, 16-4-2017

The calling of singing is huge
Jazzism, 17-3-2017

My musical palette is broad
Jazz bulletin, 01-3-2017

Wordless she sings the arrangement Finding You by Paul Heller dubbed instruments without piano, guitar and bass, totally cool.
Dr Jazz, 01-3-2017

Jazz Magazine / 27-02-2017
Jazz Magazine, 27-2-2017

... On 'Luck Child', the Dutch vocalist sings a wide range of finely arranged songs from Paul McCartney to Duke Ellington and Ennio Morricone. Always with a lot of soul and enchanting expressive power.
Jazzthetik, 25-2-2017

This voice triggers envy! A clarity, security, strength of character and a facet richness ... Such a voice is made to sing.
MDR Broadcast Website, 15-2-2017

... Fay transforms musical highlights into warm, jazzy-elegant singing. The arrangements with piano, bass, sax and funky accompaniment of the guitars give a special mood...
Concerto, 03-2-2017

With this cd, she totally re-acclaimed here name she established with her ode to Chet Baker in 2005.
Friesch Dagblad, 02-2-2017

... A successful collection of known and unknown songs, merged by Fay Claassen's voice to a homogeneous album
HiFi Stars, 01-2-2017

Op het klein gehouden Luck Child zingt Claassen zich meer dan voorheen los van haar grote voorbeelden en klinkt ze even intiem als intens.
De Volkskrant, 20-1-2017

I live for the music. I'm a musician!
Het Parool, 14-1-2017

Jazz-singer Fay Claassen releases a new album with her jazz interpretations of pop songs by Paul McCartney and Burt Bacharach.
NRC Handelsblad, 11-1-2017

Met ‘Luck Child’ belicht Claassen de lichtere kant van de muziek waarbij haar stem zoveel mogelijk de emotie zoekt.
Jazzenzo, 05-1-2017