| Hi Folks!
I’m in my office taking care of business —lots of emails, promo packs, hunting down photos, and the meanest of them all, finding a workable rehearsal date for 7 mega busy musos. It’s a big deal being a grownup! One of the best ways I stay sane through this deluge of details is to put Stevie Wonder’s music on loop play. His songs protect the spirit from crumbling into a near comatose state of “am I a musician or am I an account?”. “Another Star” restores life, “Do I Do” brings joy, “Love’s In Need Of Love Today” guides us into a bright future. Stevie’s the man!
I first heard about Sinne through the late and great Butch Lacy, a longtime San Diego jazz pianist hero who in later years lived in Denmark. He sent me a jazz vocal CD and simply said “she’s really good and you’ve got to check her out”. The recording was Sinne’s release called The Beauty of Sadness. When Butch goes out of his way and ponies up the international shipping charges to make a point, you know something out of the ordinary is going on. I put the CD on and was knocked out. What a sound! What great pitch and her choices of songs and arrangements were stellar! She has a unique blend of her own music mixed in with a few standards including Michel Legrand’s “Windmills of Your Mind” and a wild take on “Strawberry Fields Forever”. Butch did all of the orchestral arrangements and they are pristine beauties. Peter Erskine is on drums and the masterful Jacob Christoffersen is playing up a storm on piano. Fantastic music! I got in touch with Sinne via email and found out that was playing 3 dates in L.A. I asked if she’d like to play a show down here in SD and she was totally on board. I think Butch told her that I’m someone to be trusted. The gig went super well and all that great music I heard on the recording showed up in her live performance as well. Since then every year that Sinne returned to the U.S. we’ve done San Diego concerts as part of her U.S. tour. Last summer I went to Denmark to join her for a 2 week tour, Coming up this July we’re doing another 2 week tour of both the Canary Islands and Denmark. Here’s a little DNA on where she’s been: Sinne Eeg is one of the strongest new female vocalists from the Scandinavian jazz scene. With 5 albums she has established herself as a Danish jazz singer with international potential. She is influenced by Nancy Wilson, Betty Carter and Sarah Vaughan, but with her personal touch of soft darkness, Sinne keeps the Scandinavian melancholy settled in her music. Since the release of the album Waiting For Dawn (2007) Sinne has won several music awards in Denmark including Danish Music Award (best jazz vocal album 2007, 2010), Danish Radio Jazz Award 2009. “the ravishing young Danish vocalist Sinne Eeg. Eeg has an amazing technique, coverage for all the tones she sings, a genuine jazz feeeling and an unusually large vocal range from top to bottom. Coupled with a totally obvious stage charisma, dignity and a sparkle in the eye, this really makes you surrender.”
On our last tour of Denmark, we played it just as a duo. I LOVE this setup and having freedom in both harmony and rhythm was fresh and liberating. The good news is we’re playing a show this Friday night at Dizzy’s. For this concert it’ll be just the two of us — more room to let the notes hang, more room to travel to new sonic vistas, and more room for silence. I know how it is in our modern day, the crowded freeway, the busy work week —it’ll be hard to shake loose from the homestead as there’s tons of gravity pinning you down. But if you do break free come and hang with us and I’m pretty sure we’ll achieve liftoff.  Sinne and Peter in Denmark, 2018
And the last live gig for this week, I’ll be playing at the Escondido Library on Saturday afternoon. It’s free and it’s fun!  photo by Rick Sokol Hope to see you there, all the best, P |
