Amanda Tosoff – Earth Voices (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 45:49 minutes | 949 MB | Genre: Vocal Jazz, Modern Creative
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Empress Music Group
Merging the deep, powerful messages of poetry with adventurous modern jazz, Toronto-based pianist/composer Amanda Tosoff leads a hybrid ensemble with strings and seven rotating vocalists on Earth Voices, the follow-up to her Juno Award-nominated 2016 release Words (“a grand achievement” – CBC Radio). The album is being released by Empress Music Group, a label and company founded by award-winning vocalist Emilie-Claire Barlow.
Earth Voices is Tosoff’s sixth album as a leader and the second to feature vocals. But whereas Words featured the marvelous singing of Felicity Williams straight through, Earth Voices adds six additional vocalists to the lineup in turn, each ideally suited to the song at hand. The compositions and orchestrations are sonorous, texturally rich, with a string quartet, guitarist Alex Goodman, and guest saxophonists Allison Au and Kelly Jefferson augmenting the lineup. The performances, full of eloquence and fire, are centered by Tosoff’s assured and lyrical pianism, revealing an artist at the peak of her powers.
“This record represents a shift in me as an artist and person. My last record Words was me tentatively dipping my toes into new unfamiliar waters, and Earth Voices is me jumping fully into these waters, excited to see what I can create if I trust my musical intuition and let go of my past beliefs about what jazz “should” be. This record really showcases my voice, loud and proud, even if I’m not one of the gorgeous voices singing on it.”
Tracklist:
1. A Dream Within a Dream (05:04)
2. Sonnet 49 (05:25)
3. Here and Heaven (05:20)
4. Birdwings (05:27)
5. Oh, Life (06:14)
6. The Fiddle and the Drum (06:26)
7. To a Stranger (05:59)
8. Finis (05:51)
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