Karin Kallmark

By 1968, Norwegian jazz singer Karin Krog was already an international star. She had already won her country's most prestigious jazz award, the Buddy, had performed in the U.S. with Claire Fischer and Don Ellis, and had won a Talent Deserving Wider Recognition award in the 1966 Down Beat poll. She had also recorded three albums under her own name by this time. The recording of Joy with then-young lions Arild Andersen on bass, Svein (Jon) Christensen on drums, saxophonist Jan Garbarek, pianist Terje Bjorklund and percussionist Espen Rud signified a change in direction, from her previously straight swing and bop performance method. The set opens provocatively, even shockingly for the time with Annette Peacock's "Mr. Joy," a paean to a personal "toy" driven by Bjorklund's modal piano…

Recorded for Polydor, six years after her landmark Joy album, this set features Norwegian jazz iconoclast Karin Krog in the electric company of keyboardist Steve Kuhn, drummer percussionist Jon Christensen, and Steve Swallow on one of his early electric bass dates. More song-oriented than her other vanguard dates, We Could Be Flying still showcases the singer in a restless, searching frame of creativity. Obviously influenced by the work Flora Purim had done with Return to Forever and the heyday of jazz-rock fusion, Krog nonetheless puts her indelible stylistic stamp on all the material here. The best tunes here were written by Kuhn, who seems to understand the subtlest nuances in Krog's performing style, as evidenced by "Meaning of Love," with its driven, wispy Latin rhythms and melodic lines that seem to bleed into one another, capturing the softness of Krog's enunciation…

Andreas Späth is a new name to me, but his long and distinguished career saw him create a varied catalogue of over 150 works. He was also a clarinettist, violinist, organist, and voice teacher, as well as becoming the city music director in Neuchâtel and an honorary member of the Swiss Music Society among other things. Very little of his music has found its way onto recordings, so this extensive overview of his chamber music with clarinet is very welcome indeed. This release is titled ‘Romantic Clarinet Chamber Music’, but Späth’s idiom has a Classical poise and an elegant lack of sentimentality, at least in the Introduction & Variations on Weber op. 133. This has a nice variety in its variations, emphasising lyricism and witty inflection rather than pure virtuosity, though there is indeed some of this in evidence, and we are fortunate to be in the safe hands of soloist Rita Karin Meier.

The pianists Mari Kodama, Momo Kodama, Karin Kei Nagano and conductor Kent Nagano present Double and Triple Piano Concertos by Mozart and Poulenc, together with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande on a new CD recording (Pentatone). Similar to Mozart’s own practice of making music with his family, the Nagano-Kodama family recorded Mozart’s piano concerto No. 7 for 3 pianos and No.10 for 2 pianos as well as Poulenc’s concerto for 2 pianos and orchestra.

The talented Norwegian singer Karin Krog sings standards and her own "Blue Eyes" on this enjoyable collaboration with tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon. Krog, a versatile vocalist, sounds perfectly at home on such tunes as "Some Other Spring," "How Insensitive," "Jelly, Jelly," and "Shiny Stockings." Dexter is in excellent form (he had lived in Europe at that point for eight years) and the group is completed by pianist Kenny Drew (who switches to organ on "Blue Eyes"), bassist Niels Pedersen, and drummer Espen Rud. This is one of the most accessible Karin Krog releases around and is recommended.