Jay Clayton & Kirk Nurock – Unraveling Emily (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 46:58 minutes | 373 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sunnyside
An air of mystery surrounds the work of Emily Dickinson. The beloved writer spent most of her time away from the public’s eye amassing a collection of poetry that has fascinated readers for decades.
Her short, gnomic verses are a perfect fit for vocalist Jay Clayton and composer Kirk Nurock. On their new recording, Unraveling Emily, Nurock weaves Clayton’s innovative vocalizing into surreal compositional soundscapes.
Nurock overdubbed multiple layers of Clayton’s singing and speaking, with varying ambience, echo and spatial relationships. A haunted theatrical quality appears, as if Dickinson’s ghost is trying to tell a story, without beginning or end.
A handful of poems were set as heart-rending ballads. The quiet “All This and More” has an uplifting feel, while “Will There Really Be a Morning?” is devastating in its blunt emotionality. Clayton’s mastery is in full voice on “A Something In a Summer’s Day” and the duo really make Dickinson’s words swing on “I May Remember Him.”
Tracklist:
1 Still We Know (Prologue) 01:08
2 All This And More 03:54
3 My Letter To The World 02:10
4 Will There Really Be A Morning? 02:17
5 Hope 01:06
6 I May Remember Him 03:46
7 Wild Nights 02:32
8 A Something In A Summer’s Day 04:46
9 This More and All 02:13
10 I’m Nobody 02:07
11 Emily’s Piano 02:04
12 World | Letter | Majesty 02:09
13 All And More This 03:20
14 How Happy I Was 01:00
15 Morning, May Remember 04:54
16 I’ve Seen A Drying Eye 01:00
17 I Never Spoke With God 02:19
18 Perchance Eternity 02:14
19 To Possibility 01:59
Personnel:
Kirk Nurock – compositions, montages and piano
Jay Clayton – vocal interpretations and improvisations
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