Quantcast

Call for Feature Essays About Any Aspect of Popular Culture, Present or Past

Music
cover art

the Fay Victor Ensemble

The FreeSong Suite

(Greene Avenue; US: 22 Sep 2009; UK: 21 Sep 2009)

Fay Victor’s second recording of original material, The FreeSong Suite, peers into the NYC-based vocalist’s challenging and rewarding world of captivating vocal work and stirring spontaneity.  Ripping through the sutures of established song forms and structures, Victor and her exceptional band at points come across like a well-oiled machine. At others, it seems to completely unravel when taking a tune, dicing it up, and stitching it back together. “Bob and Weave” oscillates between ominous, fractured free-associative passages and tight, groove-oriented instrumental interludes, and the gentle, bluesy, and mellow sway of “Night Ties” emerges at the end of the first of three long-form compositional sections that make up the disc, emitting a sigh of relief after the scarred selections preceding it. The remainder of the Suite is as grating and jarring as it is refreshing, further augmenting Victor’s status as a musician and composer who is rewriting the rules of vocal jazz.

Rating:

It's been said that jazz was born in New Orleans and it grew up in Kansas City. That's where I grew up too, learning to love the sounds of the city's storied past. Now I'm on a mission to unearth what I haven't heard.


Media
object width="425" height="344">
Comments
Now on PopMatters
The Dark Pop-Punk of the Shadow Delivers (Sound Affects) [Thu, 11:00 am]
Q&A with Dickens scholar (PopWire) [Thu, 8:05 am]
Faith vs. Sonic (Moving Pixels) [Thu, 7:00 am]
Ben Gazzara and The End Of An Aura (Short Ends and Leader) [Thu, 5:00 am]
  1. 'Nebraska': Bruce Springsteen's 'Heart of Darkness' (Columns)
  2. Slipped Discs 2011 - Part 1: From 13Ghosts to Friendly Fires (Features)
  3. Counterbalance No. 66: Carole King’s 'Tapestry' (Sound Affects)
  4. The Best Games of 2011 (Features)
  5. Not-So-Central Casting: Kevin Smith and the Birth of the Reality Podcast (Features)
  6. The 10 Greatest Movie Spies Ever (Short Ends and Leader)
  7. 'Amy' Is a Horror Game That Is Broken in All the Right Ways (Moving Pixels)
  8. The 10 Greatest Shakespeare Film Adaptations of All Time (Short Ends and Leader)
  9. Slipped Discs 2011 - Part 2: From the Go! Team to the Phoenix Foundation (Features)
  10. Slipped Discs 2011 - Part 3: From Real Estate to Youth Lagoon (Features)
  11. Different Flavored Skulls: An Intimate Chat with the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne (Features)
  12. Lana Del Rey: Born to Die (Reviews)
  13. 'Library After Air Raid': On the Survival of Culture Amid the Barbarity of War (Columns)
  14. The Future Is a Faded Song: Douglas Rushkoff on the Groundbreaking "ADD" (Features)
  15. Get Off of My Cloud!: 'Collecting' Music in the Digital Age (Features)
  16. The Top 15 Madonna Singles of All Time (Sound Affects)
  17. Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas (Reviews)
  18. Google and the Production of Curiosity (Marginal Utility)
  19. Carole E. Barrowman’s Authorial Journey to Hollow Earth (Features)
  20. Various Artists: T Bone Burnett Presents the Speaking Clock Revue (Reviews)
  21. Tower Songs: Townes Van Zandt (Columns)
  22. Black Bananas: Rad Times Xpress IV (Reviews)
  23. The Gay Ole Countryside (Columns)
  24. Of Montreal: Paralytic Stalks (Reviews)
  25. Paul McCartney: Kisses on the Bottom (Reviews)
  26. Counterbalance No. 67: John Coltrane’s 'A Love Supreme' (Sound Affects)
  27. “Don’t Let Me Fall”: Hip-Hop in the Age of Austerity (Features)
  28. 'Namath': Broadway Joe Looks Back (Reviews)
  29. A Tale of How Great Journalism Became Revisionist History: Grambling State U Football (Columns)
  30. Chairlift: Something (Reviews)
PM Picks
Music Archive
Announcements

© 1999-2012 PopMatters.com. All rights reserved.
PopMatters.com™ and PopMatters™ are trademarks
of PopMatters Media, Inc.

PopMatters is wholly independently owned and operated.
PopMatters is a member of BUZZMEDIA Music, MOG and Guardian Select.