“Ha!” is the fourth Humcrush album, this time with the most welcome addition of singer Sidsel Endresen. Having toured together for a couple of years, they finally recorded some shows last year. This album was beautifully recorded in concert at Willisau Jazzfestival and is a great example of the duo´s seamless interaction as well as Endresen´s ability to improvise, listen, react, adapt and surprise, fully showing that we are dealing with one of the world´s leading vocal improvisors, coming from years of experience from solo work and collaborations with musicians like Bugge Wesseltoft, Helge Sten, Christian Wallumrød, Rolf Wallin, Jan Bang, Håkon Kornstad and Stian Westerhus.
During the late '50s, Ella Fitzgerald continued her Song Book records with Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book, releasing a series of albums featuring 59 songs written by George and Ira Gershwin. Those songs, plus alternate takes, were combined on a four-disc box set, Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book, in 1998. These performances are easily among Fitzgerald's very best, and for any serious fan, this is the ideal place to acquire the recordings, since the sound and presentation are equally classy and impressive.
A star in her native Denmark, jazz singer Sinne Eeg has been weaving her spell in performances throughout Europe, the United States and Asia, where audiences and critics alike have responded enthusiastically to her dark, alluring voice, rich timbre, impeccable intonation, inherent sense of swing and remarkably natural scatting ability that recalls her own vocal jazz heroes, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Anita O'Day. On We've Just Begun, her winning collaboration with the 19-piece Danish Radio Big Band and 9th album overall, Eeg sings with signature soulfulness, sassy spirit and jazzy abandon on a program of three well-chosen standards, a swinging adaptation of a tune from a vintage Danish film, and five affecting originals with Eeg as composer and/or lyricist.