LIKE A CIRCLE IN A SPIRAL

CREDITS
Recorded in Toronto at The Canterbury Music Company
Fern Lindzon, arranger
George Koller, producer
Jeremy Darby, engineer
David Travers-Smith – Found Sound, mastering
Release: May 8 2014, iatros

PLAYERS
Fern Lindzon, vocals & piano
David French, soprano & tenor saxophones
Michael Davidson, vibraphone
George Koller, bass
Nick Fraser, drums
Bill McBirnie, flute (tracks 5&7)

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1. Jazz at the Bookstore (Ron Sexsmith)
2. The Windmills of Your Mind (Alan & Marilyn BergmanMichel Legrand)
3. Mishaela (Gil Dor, Achinoam Nini)
4. Carrie (Fern Lindzon)
5. Night and Day (Cole Porter)
6. A Malekh Veynt – An Angel Weeps (Perez Hirshbeyn, Lazar Weiner)
7. Shashado/Loro – (Fern Lindzon/Egberto Gismonti)
8. Wishing/Papir is Dokh Vays – Paper is White (Fern Lindzon/trad)
9. Even Divas Get the Blues (Myna Wallin, Fern Lindzon)
10. What’s Your Story, Morning Glory? (Jack Lawrence, Paul Webster, Mary Lou Williams) 
11. This Little Love (Frances Landesman, Thomas J. Wolf Jr.)

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LINER NOTES

Like  Circle in a SpiralBy now, three CDs along in a fascinating recording career, it’s clear: Fern Lindzon is a musician who dances to the beat of her own heart.

Like a Circle in a Spiral is a remarkably personal statement, one that sustains the warmth and venturesome spirit of the Toronto singer and pianist’s debut release, Moments Like These, from 2008, and her Juno Award nominee, Two Kites, from 2011.

The new CD takes its title from a line in one of its key tracks, an exquisite rendering of Michel Legrand’s Windmills of Your Mind in which Fern sings with great care over a repeated, 10-beat melodic pattern that traces the cyclical movement evoked by the song’s central lyric image.

In this, Windmills of Your Mind is typical of the playful imagination and understated musical erudition that she brings to Like a Circle in a Spiral — typical of the allusions that echo back and forth between the words and her arrangements of the songs that she has chosen to sing.

And such songs. Such a range, such a wealth of riches — the work of writers as distinct in style and culture as, among others, the Frenchman Legrand and his American lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman, Brazil’s Egberto Gismonti, the Israeli team of Noa (Achinoam Nini) and Gil Dor, Canada’s Ron Sexsmith and the American Mary Lou Williams.

Fern has made them all very much of a subtle piece, both instrumentally and vocally. Beyond her usual harmonic and rhythmic intrigues, not least a gentle nod to the genius of Kenny Wheeler in A Malekh Veynt, her sense of “soundscaping” is especially striking; there are moments in the Israelis’ hopeful Mishaela and her own poignant Carrie where voice, or voices, vibraphone and soprano saxophone blend to almost ethereal effect, complemented elsewhere on Like A Circle in a Spiral by the earthier fundamentals that colour Sexsmith’s sardonic Jazz at the Bookstore and Williams’ yearning What’s Your Story, Morning Glory?

Fern offers these songs, and the others here, measured and at times even lingering performances. There is an affecting lightness and purity to her singing — whether sultry, wistful or serene, be it in English, Hebrew or Yiddish — and a thoughtful and equally unhurried quality to the contributions from her musicians, saxophonist David French, vibraphonist Michael Davidson, bassist George Koller, drummer Nick Fraser.

Gismonti’s vivacious Loro, framed by Fern’s own Shashado and featuring guest flutist Bill McBirnie, is one exception, and it must be said that Fern’s live performances of late have been a revelation in their boldness. But it’s a quieter sort of self-assurance that prevails on Like a Circle in a Spiral, the confidence of a musician who is secure in her sense of herself, her art and her craft.

By now, three CDs along, this too is clear.

Mark Miller
Author, jazz history and biography
Toronto


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FERN’S NOTES

1. Jazz at the Bookstore (Ron Sexsmith)
Ronboy Rhymes Inc.
Ron’s wit and wisdom of written word and musical phrase comes through in this little gem. It was a thrill to meet Ron at the 2012 Juno Awards in Ottawa; that encounter inspired me to write this arrangement.

2. The Windmills of Your Mind (A. & M. BergmanMichel Legrand)
EMI U Catalog Inc.
The crazy windmills of our inner thought – the circles and spirals of life –  are captured so perfectly in these amazing lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman.

3. Mishaela (Gil Dor, Achinoam Nini)
Universal – Songs of Polygram Intl/More Publ B.P.L. Ltd.
Grey clouds, a dry riverbed, desolate silence. Yet Mishaela is laughing. “It is a rainbow in the east, that is all I need,” declares Mishaela in this beautiful contemporary Israeli song in Hebrew.

4. Carrie (Fern Lindzon)
SOCAN
Carrie, my beautiful friend, you taught me how cool it was to love poetry and literature, and to dance and giggle in the moonlight. May your exquisite soul rest in peace.

5. Night and Day (Cole Porter)
Warner Bros Inc.
It was the “beat, beat, beat of the tom tom when the jungle shadows fall” in Cole Porter’s rarely-heard verse that inspired my One Note Samba-ish arrangement.

6. A Malekh Veynt – An Angel Weeps (P. Hirshbeyn, L. Weiner)
Metro Music Co.
“An angel weeps and covers the grass with dew.” This gorgeous Yiddish song is about spending the night waiting for a lover who never comes.

7. Shashado/Loro – (Fern Lindzon/Egberto Gismonti)
SOCAN/SODRAC Gismonti Editions
Loro is so much fun to play that Gismonti himself has recorded it at least three times! Shashado is my composition based on his chord changes.

8. Wishing/Papir is Dokh Vays – Paper is White (Fern Lindzon/trad)
SOCAN
The Yiddish lyrics say, “I do not ask for honour and riches, just a little house on the green grass where I can live with my sweetie.” Wishing, hoping, dreaming…

9. Even Divas Get the Blues (Myna Wallin, Fern Lindzon)
SOCAN
Several years ago I commissioned my friend, the poet Myna Wallin, to write Even Divas Get the Blues as a spoken performance accompanied by my band. What fun it has been to turn her brilliantly abstract, world-weary diva into a song.

10. What’s Your Story, Morning Glory? (J. Lawrence, P. Webster, Mary Lou Williams) 
Cecilia Pub, Warner Bros. Music
I discovered the amazing music of Mary Lou Williams when I was commissioned by the Barrie Jazz and Blues Festival to present a concert of her music in 2011. Mary Lou’s musical output is massive, starting in Kansas City in the 1920s right up until her death in 1981. I love this one!

11. This Little Love (Frances Landesman, Thomas J Wolf Jr.)
Wolfland
I found this wonderful bonbon on an Irene Kral record. Its delicious harmony is served up with bitingly clever lyrics.


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Like a Circle in a Spiral – Reviews and Press

Like a Circle in a Spiral, The Whole Note, September 2, 2014
by Stuart Broomer
“Fern Lindzon is a rare jazz singer, her strong identity based on nuanced expression, a clear, almost silky voice, and a freedom from the collections of mannerisms that many jazz singers use to distinguish themselves. Instead, her work seems to grow from her solid piano playing and the empathy that exists with her band.”

Like a Circle in a Spiral, !earshot, Aug 28, 2014
by Shelley Gummeson
“There are moments where she is smart and smouldering, sublimely elegant, and flowing in her interpretations.”

Like a Circle in a Spiral, Los Angeles Jazz Scene, Aug, 2014
by Scott Yanow
“Whether it is “Even Divas Get The Blues,” Egberto Gismonti’s “Loro” or the witty “Jazz At The Bookstore,” Like A Circle In A Spiral will reward repeated listenings.”

Like a Circle in a Spiral, The Senior Times, Montreal, July 16, 2014
by Irwin Block
“This 11-song collection reveals the growing confidence and expanded scope of singer/pianist Fern Lindzon.”

Even Divas Get the Blues, Canadian Jewish News, May 28, 2014
by Kathryn Kates
Feature Article

Like a Circle in a Spiral, New Canadian Music, May 8, 2014
by Kerry Doole
“Fern Lindzon is one of the most adventurous and accomplished vocalists, pianists and songwriters on the TO music scene, and she has a JUNO Nomination (in 2012 for the superb Two Kites) to prove it.”

Like a Circle in a Spiral, NOW Magazine, May 8, 2014
by Sarah Greene
“Juno-nominated pianist and vocalist Fern Lindzon takes an unusually eclectic, international approach to jazz.”