MOMENTS LIKE THESE
Duets featuring Fern Lindzon (piano & vocals)
with Don Thompson (vibraphone), Reg Schwager (guitar)
and George Koller (bass)
arranged and produced by Fern Lindzon
recorded by Chard Irschick at Inception Sound, Toronto
℗2008 iatros
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1. I Thought About You (Mercer, Van Heusen)
2. On the Street Where You Live (Lerner, Loewe)
3. Like Someone in Love (Burke, Van Heusen)
4. Re’i (Mosh ben Ari)
5. Let Yourself Go (Berlin)
6. TR7 (Lindzon)
7. To See Through Infant Eyes (Infant Eyes) (Lindzon, Shorter)
8. Children’s Lullabye / Never Never Land (Lindzon/ Comden & Green, Stein)
9. Estate (Martino)
10. You Really Shouldn’t, But… (Lindzon)
11. Moments Like These / You Belong to Her (Stolen Moments) (Lindzon/Fischer, Nelson)
12. Where Do You Start? (Bergman, Mandel)
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Moments Like These Liner Notes
Folks — friends, fellow musicians, fans — have been telling Fern Lindzon that there’s something very brave about Moments Like These. Daring even. After all, it’s her first CD, and here she is playing piano and singing in that most intimate and revealing of settings, the duet, with vibraphonist Don Thompson, guitarist Reg Schwager and bassist George Koller, three of Toronto’s finest jazz musicians. Daring indeed.
Well, yes, that’s certainly one way of looking at it. But here’s another: Fern is simply challenging herself, as jazz musicians are wont to do — the good ones, anyway, the ones who understand instinctively that complacency does not complement creativity.
That’s certainly consistent with the inquiring spirit that Fern has shown throughout her career: classical studies in piano and voice, a degree in music history from the University of Toronto, an introduction to jazz in her early twenties and to Klezmer music more recently, and a thriving career along the way as a pianist and singer for all seasons.
The idea of recording with just one other musician at a time is surely the boldest of her challenges on Moments Like These, particularly when that one other musician is capable of offering the level of invention and inspiration that Thompson, Schwager and Koller bring to this warm and engaging CD.
So too, in this matter of challenges, is Fern’s decision to sing Estate and Where Do You Start?, two songs already recorded near-definitively by Shirley Horn with string orchestra; Fern makes them her own all over again with much, much less. And how about writing lyrics to Wayne Shorter’s Infant Eyes? Or creating the vocalese — the lyrics and the free melodic line — of the song Moments Like These as a prelude to Oliver Nelson’s Stolen Moments? Or composing a 12-tone blues, TR7, and an allusively Monk-ish You Really Shouldn’t, But…, two of the CD’s three instrumentals? Or adapting Re’i, a song of reflection in Hebrew, for piano and vibes, and to such ravishing effect at that? Or finding other ways as an arranger to freshen the rest of her repertoire, and other ways as a singer to bring to it new insights? Or exploring those insights even further at the piano, right hand melodically inquisitive and left hand harmonically reassuring?
Or ultimately — as challenges go — making a CD that stands with quiet confidence apart from so many other CDs these days by singers, singers who play piano and pianists who sing?
Challenges set. Challenges met.
Mark Miller was the jazz critic for The Globe and Mail from 1978 to 2005 and is the author of High Hat, Trumpet and Rhythm: The Life and Music of Valaida Snow and seven other books.
Fern’s Notes
What do you do with a musicology degree; particularly one with an emphasis on both ethno and twentieth-century music?
As destiny would have it, on my way to a life at the library, I stumbled into a jazz club and never fully recovered.
Our lives are full of these moments; moments that in a flash make sense of our life, create a feeling of euphoria, open a doorway; moments that make us feel like we’ve come home.
I can trace my life through these moments.
When I was five years old, hearing the overture to Gypsy at O’Keefe Centre sent an electric current through my body. It took everything I had to resist the urge to jump out of my seat, climb up onto the stage and sing.
When I was nine years old, my mother took me to hear Arthur Rubinstein play a solo Chopin recital at Massey Hall. I remember watching this seemingly ancient man whose unbounded energy and passion scared me to death. I thought for sure that he would have a heart attack and I would have to replace him. After all, I had been studying piano for about two weeks.
In high school my music teacher took a few students to a participatory evening of free improvisation. As I slowly got over being intimidated by making music entirely spontaneously, I banged on the prepared piano, vocalized, played all sorts of non-traditional instruments; I realized then that music-making was about listening and communicating with a spirit of adventure, play and abandon.
And then there was jazz, and sometime later, klezmer music. The first two notes of Bill Evans Live at the Village Vanguard were a revelation. For a classical pianist this was my gateway, and I knew that I wanted to devote my life to exploring improvised music.
Fern Lindzon, January 2008
Moments Like These Reviews
CD review: Moments Like These, Toronto Life, March 2009
by Stuart Broomer
“Fern Lindzon revealed the breadth of her talents as both singer and pianist with 2008’s Moments Like These, a collection of thoughtful duets with George Koller, Reg Schwager and Don Thompson.”
CD Review: Moments Like These, klezmershack.com, Oct 30, 2008
by Keith Wolzinger
“…immerse yourself in the music, and seize the moments that this album offers. Moments like these don’t occur very often.”
CD Review: Moments Like These, Coda Magazine, May 2008
by Tracey Nolan
“Lindzon’s vocals are rich, elegant and, thanks in part to her many years of stage experience, delivered with a sense of confidence and ease.”
Feature Article: Inspired by Ella, The Globe and Mail, April 2008
by Michael Posner
“Fern Lindzon was on her way to becoming a classical pianist until she unexpectedly fell in love with jazz.
Now, she’s one of Toronto’s most popular performers”
CD Review: Moments Like These, Los Angeles Jazz Scene, April 2008
by Scott Yanow
“Everything works.
Clearly Fern Lindzon deserves to be better known on this side of the Canadian border. Moments Like These is a keeper.”
CD Review: Moments Like These, Vancouver Sun, April 2008
Marke Andrews
“…performed with great taste and musicality”
CD Review: Moments Like These, WholeNote Magazine, April 2008
by Jim Galloway
“Take a sensitive singer/pianist, choose an imaginative set of songs… listeners to the music will find a great deal of pleasure in this tasteful collection of superior lyrics and melodies.”
CD Review: Moments Like These, NOW, February 21, 2008
by Addi Stewart
“Interesting how such a basic set of instruments can create such divergent thoughts and feelings. A vibraphone, a guitar, a bass and a female voice add up to more than the sum of their parts on Lindzon’s debut.”
