Paul Heller invites Marjorie Barnes, Fay Claassen, Alma Naidu & David Linx - Vocal Summit Vol. 2

For the second time after 2019, the series "Paul Heller invites..." will be a summit meeting of four vocal voices. One can confidently speak of an exciting mini-festival at this second "Vocal Summit", so diverse is the spectrum of vocal textures. Whereby there are actually five "voices": The expressive saxophone of the host "speaks" and jubilates no less insistently than a human singing voice.

The Dutch singer Fay Claassen, about whom a US jazz magazine wrote that she is to singing what Audrey Hepburn was to cinema: elegant and graceful, is back. With her radiance, but above all her multi-layered, sometimes wonderfully roughened voice, she also inspires in collaboration with the masterful singer and composer David Linx from Belgium. Their joint album "And Still We Swing" (2020, with the WDR Big Band) is the definitive highlight of their now 20-year collaboration. No less rousing, jazz diva Marjorie Barnes expands the Summit from the perspective of US jazz. Virtuously swinging, she delights with songs from the American Songbook as well as with her grandiose Sarah Vaughn tribute - and on top of that she is a confessed star of electro disco funk: Her album "Point Blank" (1983), arranged by Jerry van Royen, is definitely worth rediscovering. Alma Naidu brings in a completely different timbre: no contemporary style seems foreign to the young singer and songwriter, with her fragile, beguilingly beautiful voice she masters pop, musical and jazz in equal measure, interpreting Duke Ellington's "Sacred Concert" with just as much stylistic confidence as she condenses her self-composed material with her own band.

Such a dream team needs an appropriate rhythm section, and that is led by none other than Dutch pianist Cor Bakker. Long a superstar in his homeland, he has long been Fay Claassen's congenial partner. Similar to Alma Naidu, Caris Hermes rejuvenates the ensemble with melodic and rhythmic verve, while Hans Dekker, experienced drummer of the WDR Big Band, completes this unique Dutch-German ensemble.