Review of Norma Winston and the NDR Radio Orchestra: A Timeless Place – An Incomparable Vocalist at Her Best | Norma Winston

WAs Norma Winstone, the incomparable English singer and lyricist, turns 80 in 2021 — still with her captivating voice — a string of tributes includes one from Manfred Eicher, head of ECM Records, the legendary master of doing more with less in new music: “She hears things differently, and she tells us about them in her quiet way.” Winston’s confident narrative would have struggled in a noisy world, but landmark albums and the accolades of his peers, fans and the MBE have underscored its soft power over 60 years. So does the release of A Timeless Place, a long-archived 1990 radio broadcast with Winston fronting the NDR Radio Orchestra in Hanover.

The title track is her much-covered ballad (explored by Mark Murphy, Jazmiah Horne and Cecile McLaurin Salvant) to pianist Jimmy Rolls’ beautiful tune The Peacocks. The fleeting happiness, the missed opportunities, the sounds and colors of emotion (“I’m drowning now, sinking slowly in a sea of ​​blue and green”) embody Winston’s material, and her low, glistening vocals and leaping riffs constantly shift the implications of the words.

She learned it over the years alongside star players, and her proven improvisational skill guides her wordless variations on guitarist Ralph Towner’s moody “The Glide.” She mischievously animated her sarcastic lyricism to Steve Swallow’s Ladies in Mercedes; And a wonderful narration of “I Loves You,” Porgy distills the song’s confusion between resignation and hope, as she also does in Kenny Wheeler’s “Sea Lady.” Winston once said: “I was always on the edge, always felt like I was swimming against the current and couldn’t stop one way or another.” Quiet as it is, this gorgeous session, enhanced by friend and collaborator Steve Gray’s arrangements for a top-notch band, captures that spirit. This is still present in Winston’s work today.

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