AUSVERKAUFT: Jazz at Green Room: Lucia Cadotsch Speak Low II

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Berlin-based Swiss vocalist Lucia Cadotsch returns with her celebrated Speak Low trio for their second album, released by We Jazz Records on 27 Nov. "Speak Low II" features the long-standing and road-tested ensemble of Cadotsch on voice, Otis Sandsjö (of Y-OTIS) on tenor saxophone and Petter Eldh (of Koma Saxo) on double bass. This time around, the band also introduces guest artists Kit Downes on hammond organ and Lucy Railton on cello. "Speak Low II" picks up where their genrebending and forward-looking debut album left off, introducing new shades into the band's sound and also diving even deeper into the songs they tackle. The group picks apart their hand-picked material, exposing the very essence of the compositions, treating the songs in a way which is at the same time lovingly respectful and naturally fresh while assembling them anew.

”Speak Low II” comes almost five years after the band’s lauded debut, and proves the depth of the band’s approach right from the start. At the core of the trio’s operation is an openness to their love of the music and to their surrounding scene(s). The album comes across as a unified collection of songs made truly theirs and found through listening to records and spending time with their musician friends, often on the road. The highly evolved band sound and the equality of the musicians shines through on the Speak Low sound, as the group uses their 100+ performances together as a vehicle for the development of their music.

”The first album was filled with pretty famous songs, but that was actually not at all intentional” explains Cadotsch. ”Those were just my favourite songs of the previous 10 years and we started working on making them ours, musically. We were playing around with concepts for the second album, but soon realised that we just needed to find the right songs and adapt them organically, which comes through in how we interact with the songs and each other. This time around, we wanted to dig deeper and made finished arrangements of around 20 tracks, half of which we ditched in the process. The ones that made the cut have been through a lot and they just felt right for us.”

The opener and also the first single of the album, ”Azure” by Duke Ellington, is a testament to the band’s process. A highly rhythmical track without any percussion instruments, the ”Speak-Lowed” version of the composition morphs into a sort of matte sonic liquid, dryly acoustic yet spacey and fluid. An additional shade comes courtesy of Kit Downes on the organ, feeling like a natural extension of the group sound rather than a feature, per se. The rhythmic element is carried on from another project involving Petter Eldh, and the original encounter with the composition came courtesy of pianist Pablo Held, whose Cologne session Cadotsch featured in.