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| Efrat Alony: Unarmed And Dazed Famous Enja Records from Germany is ready with Efrat Alony's new album Unarmed And Dazed. The personnel of this project is: Efrat Alony vocal, Mark Reinke piano, keyboards, Andreas Henze bass, guitar, Kay Lübke drums, Athena Quartet Saskia Viersen, Margherita Biederbick, Hanna Klein, Kathrin Bogensberger. Born in Haifa, Israel, singer Efrat Alony studied composition, arranging, jazz singing and classical singing in her home country as well as the United States and Germany and took additional lessons from the likes of Joe Lovano, Bob Brookmeyer and Steve Gray. Efrat was a featured soloist with German Sunday Night Orchestra and worked as a musical director and vocal coach for various theatre productions. When studying at Berklee College of Music in Boston, she met German pianist Mark Reinke, a former student of pianists Aki Takase and Richie Beirach. Efrat and Mark soon made up a team heading for new paths in vocal jazz. "We simply wanted an affirmation of form", says Reinke, "and concentrated on the essential." The result is a very individual form of jazz songs -- expressionistic, full of urgency and compositional strength. "As sad as her eyes are her songs", one critic wrote. "Her disarmingly clear sound is contrasted by refined arrangements. A real ear opener." Efrat Alony's monolithic, independent alto voice has sometimes been compared to those of Joni Mitchell, Edie Brickell or Susi Hyldgaard. It was described by the press as "unusual", "dedicated", "conveying depth", "warm, powerful and marvellously melancholic". Berlin daily Morgenpost reads: "The lightness with which her full and warm voice floats through the octaves, makes one forget how difficult some of the lines are. The cello is her favorite instrument: 'Its sound is beautiful, round, dark, massive and full of depths' -- descriptions that match Alony's style as well." An admirer of Joni Mitchell and Sidsel Endresen, Efrat Alony enters new realms of expression on her third album "Unarmed And Dazed". With a voice as naked as the musical forms are complex, she delivers her very personal lyrics and melodies along with two individual cover versions of songs by the Beatles and Tom Waits. Sometimes swelling with string quartet and organ sounds, sometimes touched by rock and electronic influences, Efrat's music is like a planet of its own -- full of atmosphere and secret and spinning around along the edges of jazz. write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Jazz News :: home page |