The Norwegian cosmopolitan Rebekka Bakken will release her new album "Little Drop Of Poison" on May 23, 2014.
The journey from Rebekka Bakken to Tom Waits is a long one, very long, of astronomical dimensions. Here is the well-traveled Norwegian singer, radiantly blonde and captivating, who creates a unique intensity with her crystal-clear articulation to illuminate the tighter battle zones between individuals and genders. A heroine of clarity and melancholy, of heartbreak and interpersonal failure, which she inscribes in the presence of her singing voice with defiance and zest for life. There is the poet of street dust, who populates his songs with disreputable and broken characters, with losers and damned souls, whose homelessness he weaves into a musical patchwork of found pieces from the pop history of the last century. It hardly gets any further away.
Almost as great as her assumed distance to Waits was Rebekka Bakken's astonishment when she was asked if she would like to participate in a Tom Waits project. The impetus came from the hr-Bigband, for years one of the finest addresses for orchestral jazz in Germany and initiator of unusual program ideas. For Rebekka Bakken, this was a timely impulse: "My first thought was," she recalls today, "what can I contribute?" But then spaces opened up. "As a musician, I need impulses that make me open new spaces in my musical body. It's about allowing something and giving up control for a moment. The result is an enormous freedom and the feeling of evolving further as a person and musician."
Initially, Bakken and arranger Jörg Achim Keller put the program together, then Keller wrote the exquisite orchestral arrangements for the Waits songs. For "Please Call Me Baby" and "San Diego Serenade," he transferred Bob Alcivar's original string arrangements into the horn-heavy language of a big band, while for "What’s He Building" he expanded the then-band version into a widescreen format. By the time Rebekka Bakken finally came to sing the songs, Keller's arrangements had released facets of the material that were hardly audible before. The arrangements are so brilliantly and authentically written that one feels these songs were written for a big band. Ultimately, it was not about making a Tom Waits record, and accordingly, the singer also placed value on not diving too deeply into the originals, allowing herself the space to appropriate these songs. And Jörg Achim Keller built a bridge "between the roughness and the lustfulness and the wild things in the music and the singer that I am. Simply genius. Very beautiful and elegant. And it sounds so natural."
The interplay of the hr-Bigband with Rebekka Bakken evokes images from the early days of pop music. While the band disciplinedly plays out the contours of the songs, Rebekka Bakken slips into the role of the glamorous singer and claims the center of the stage – a distant relative of singers like Ma Rainey or Bessie Smith, who enchanted stages during the heyday of city blues. Clearly, Rebekka Bakken feels comfortable in this unusual context. "I was completely free to respond to the music and my own associations and feelings," she explains. "It is so far removed from what I usually do and at the same time felt so close, as if they were my own songs." And much to her own surprise, it was rather the songs that had previously been foreign to her that have now grown closest to her heart. "I could empathize much better with these tough songs like 'Just The Right Bullets' or 'Bad As Me' than with the beautiful songs and the ballads. But the beautiful pieces need this Little Drop of Poison," she explains, referring to the song title that gives the whole album its name and direction, "otherwise they become flat and bland." She need not worry that a little drop of poison remains in play; besides the compositions of Tom Waits and the arrangements of Jörg Achim Keller, she herself ensures with her singing that there is no doubt in this production that Rebekka Bakken is a singer whose voice shines far beyond the horizon of her personal experiences.
(Versions: Jewel case with 16 tracks, limited digipak with 18 tracks, double LP with download code)
http://www.facebook.com/rebekkabakken
"San Diego Serenade" - Rebekka Bakken sings Tom Waits feat
http://youtu.be/r6Sf3Rh_tM0
Jörg Achim Keller on "Rebekka Bakken sings Tom Waits"
http://youtu.be/u6TrHA9AVYs
Rebekka Bakken "Little Drop Of Poison"
Tracklisting:
01. Broken Bicycles
02. Please Call Me, Baby
03. Little Drop Of Poison
04. Downtown
05. Hang On St. Christopher
06. Bad As Me
07. Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis
08. Just The Right Bullets
09. I Can’t Wait To Get Off Work
10. I Wish I Was In New Orleans
11. Time
12. San Diego Serenade
13. Yesterday Is Here
14. Saving All My Love For You
15. If I Have To Go
16. What’s He Building (Bonus track)
17. Everything Goes To Hell (Bonus track on Digipak)
18. New Coat Of Paint (Bonus track on Digipak)
live 2014
16.05.2014 Ludwigsburg (DE), Schlossfestspiele
23.05.2014 Hamburg (DE), ElbJazz Festival
19.07.2014 20:00 DREIEICH (DE), Burggarten Dreieichenhain
20.07.2014 Nürnberg (Nuremberg) (DE), Martim Hotel
25.07.2014 Rottenburg/Neckar (), Marktplatz
20.10.2014 20:00 GRAZ (AT), Orpheum Graz
21.10.2014 21:00 WIEN (AT), Wiener Konzerthaus
22.10.2014 20:00 LINZ (AT), POSTHOF
05.11.2014 20:00 LÜBECK (DE), Musik- und Kongresshalle Lübeck
07.11.2014 Heidelberg (DE), Stadthalle
08.11.2014 Freiburg (), Theater
09.11.2014 Biberach an der Riß (DE), Stadthalle
12.11.2014 Stuttgart (DE), Theaterhaus
13.11.2014 Kaiserslautern (DE), Kammgarn
14.11.2014 Kreuztal (), Stadthalle
22.11.2014 20:00 LEIPZIG (DE), Haus Auensee
23.11.2014 Essen (DE), Philharmonie
Rebekka Bakken & hr Bigband
19.07.2014 20:00 DREIEICH (DE), Burggarten Dreieichenhain
20.07.2014 Nürnberg (Nuremberg) (DE), Martim Hotel
25.07.2014 Rottenburg/Neckar (), Marktplatz
05.11.2014 20:00 LÜBECK (DE), Musik- und Kongresshalle Lübeck
07.11.2014 Heidelberg (DE), Stadthalle
08.11.2014 Freiburg (), Theater
09.11.2014 Biberach an der Riß (DE), Stadthalle
12.11.2014 Stuttgart (DE), Theaterhaus
13.11.2014 Kaiserslautern (DE), Kammgarn
14.11.2014 Kreuztal (), Stadthalle
22.11.2014 20:00 LEIPZIG (DE), Haus Auensee
23.11.2014 Essen (DE), Philharmonie
Rebekka Bakken plays Tom Waits
20.10.2014 20:00 GRAZ (AT), Orpheum Graz
21.10.2014 21:00 WIEN (AT), Wiener Konzerthaus
22.10.2014 20:00 LINZ (AT), POSTHOF
Rebekka Bakken, Little Drop Of Poison
Till Brönner & Dieter Ilg & Rebekka Bakken
16.05.2014 Ludwigsburg (DE), Schlossfestspiele
The journey from Rebekka Bakken to Tom Waits is a long one, very long, of astronomical dimensions. Here is the well-traveled Norwegian singer, radiantly blonde and captivating, who creates a unique intensity with her crystal-clear articulation to illuminate the tighter battle zones between individuals and genders. A heroine of clarity and melancholy, of heartbreak and interpersonal failure, which she inscribes in the presence of her singing voice with defiance and zest for life. There is the poet of street dust, who populates his songs with disreputable and broken characters, with losers and damned souls, whose homelessness he weaves into a musical patchwork of found pieces from the pop history of the last century. It hardly gets any further away.
Almost as great as her assumed distance to Waits was Rebekka Bakken's astonishment when she was asked if she would like to participate in a Tom Waits project. The impetus came from the hr-Bigband, for years one of the finest addresses for orchestral jazz in Germany and initiator of unusual program ideas. For Rebekka Bakken, this was a timely impulse: "My first thought was," she recalls today, "what can I contribute?" But then spaces opened up. "As a musician, I need impulses that make me open new spaces in my musical body. It's about allowing something and giving up control for a moment. The result is an enormous freedom and the feeling of evolving further as a person and musician."
Initially, Bakken and arranger Jörg Achim Keller put the program together, then Keller wrote the exquisite orchestral arrangements for the Waits songs. For "Please Call Me Baby" and "San Diego Serenade," he transferred Bob Alcivar's original string arrangements into the horn-heavy language of a big band, while for "What’s He Building" he expanded the then-band version into a widescreen format. By the time Rebekka Bakken finally came to sing the songs, Keller's arrangements had released facets of the material that were hardly audible before. The arrangements are so brilliantly and authentically written that one feels these songs were written for a big band. Ultimately, it was not about making a Tom Waits record, and accordingly, the singer also placed value on not diving too deeply into the originals, allowing herself the space to appropriate these songs. And Jörg Achim Keller built a bridge "between the roughness and the lustfulness and the wild things in the music and the singer that I am. Simply genius. Very beautiful and elegant. And it sounds so natural."
The interplay of the hr-Bigband with Rebekka Bakken evokes images from the early days of pop music. While the band disciplinedly plays out the contours of the songs, Rebekka Bakken slips into the role of the glamorous singer and claims the center of the stage – a distant relative of singers like Ma Rainey or Bessie Smith, who enchanted stages during the heyday of city blues. Clearly, Rebekka Bakken feels comfortable in this unusual context. "I was completely free to respond to the music and my own associations and feelings," she explains. "It is so far removed from what I usually do and at the same time felt so close, as if they were my own songs." And much to her own surprise, it was rather the songs that had previously been foreign to her that have now grown closest to her heart. "I could empathize much better with these tough songs like 'Just The Right Bullets' or 'Bad As Me' than with the beautiful songs and the ballads. But the beautiful pieces need this Little Drop of Poison," she explains, referring to the song title that gives the whole album its name and direction, "otherwise they become flat and bland." She need not worry that a little drop of poison remains in play; besides the compositions of Tom Waits and the arrangements of Jörg Achim Keller, she herself ensures with her singing that there is no doubt in this production that Rebekka Bakken is a singer whose voice shines far beyond the horizon of her personal experiences.
(Versions: Jewel case with 16 tracks, limited digipak with 18 tracks, double LP with download code)
http://www.facebook.com/rebekkabakken
"San Diego Serenade" - Rebekka Bakken sings Tom Waits feat
http://youtu.be/r6Sf3Rh_tM0
Jörg Achim Keller on "Rebekka Bakken sings Tom Waits"
http://youtu.be/u6TrHA9AVYs
Rebekka Bakken "Little Drop Of Poison"
Tracklisting:
01. Broken Bicycles
02. Please Call Me, Baby
03. Little Drop Of Poison
04. Downtown
05. Hang On St. Christopher
06. Bad As Me
07. Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis
08. Just The Right Bullets
09. I Can’t Wait To Get Off Work
10. I Wish I Was In New Orleans
11. Time
12. San Diego Serenade
13. Yesterday Is Here
14. Saving All My Love For You
15. If I Have To Go
16. What’s He Building (Bonus track)
17. Everything Goes To Hell (Bonus track on Digipak)
18. New Coat Of Paint (Bonus track on Digipak)
live 2014
16.05.2014 Ludwigsburg (DE), Schlossfestspiele
23.05.2014 Hamburg (DE), ElbJazz Festival
19.07.2014 20:00 DREIEICH (DE), Burggarten Dreieichenhain
20.07.2014 Nürnberg (Nuremberg) (DE), Martim Hotel
25.07.2014 Rottenburg/Neckar (), Marktplatz
20.10.2014 20:00 GRAZ (AT), Orpheum Graz
21.10.2014 21:00 WIEN (AT), Wiener Konzerthaus
22.10.2014 20:00 LINZ (AT), POSTHOF
05.11.2014 20:00 LÜBECK (DE), Musik- und Kongresshalle Lübeck
07.11.2014 Heidelberg (DE), Stadthalle
08.11.2014 Freiburg (), Theater
09.11.2014 Biberach an der Riß (DE), Stadthalle
12.11.2014 Stuttgart (DE), Theaterhaus
13.11.2014 Kaiserslautern (DE), Kammgarn
14.11.2014 Kreuztal (), Stadthalle
22.11.2014 20:00 LEIPZIG (DE), Haus Auensee
23.11.2014 Essen (DE), Philharmonie
Rebekka Bakken & hr Bigband
19.07.2014 20:00 DREIEICH (DE), Burggarten Dreieichenhain
20.07.2014 Nürnberg (Nuremberg) (DE), Martim Hotel
25.07.2014 Rottenburg/Neckar (), Marktplatz
05.11.2014 20:00 LÜBECK (DE), Musik- und Kongresshalle Lübeck
07.11.2014 Heidelberg (DE), Stadthalle
08.11.2014 Freiburg (), Theater
09.11.2014 Biberach an der Riß (DE), Stadthalle
12.11.2014 Stuttgart (DE), Theaterhaus
13.11.2014 Kaiserslautern (DE), Kammgarn
14.11.2014 Kreuztal (), Stadthalle
22.11.2014 20:00 LEIPZIG (DE), Haus Auensee
23.11.2014 Essen (DE), Philharmonie
Rebekka Bakken plays Tom Waits
20.10.2014 20:00 GRAZ (AT), Orpheum Graz
21.10.2014 21:00 WIEN (AT), Wiener Konzerthaus
22.10.2014 20:00 LINZ (AT), POSTHOF
Rebekka Bakken, Little Drop Of Poison
Till Brönner & Dieter Ilg & Rebekka Bakken
16.05.2014 Ludwigsburg (DE), Schlossfestspiele
