Stan Hey
The starting point for any singer is to find their voice and then the songs that work with it. As the former lead singer of a teen Liverpool band The Spook, I found both elements challenging to say the least. My treble had gone to an ugly alto; we had only one snare drum, an acoustic guitar, and a pair of maracas to work with and just one song that we could all do: Hey Mr Tambourine Man. Even from a closed garage, the muffled screeching and tinny bashing annoyed neighbours and dogs alike. We quit before we could be fined for noise nuisance.
The musical artists’ search for their successful voice is not to be underestimated and is a precious thing and worth holding on to. Think of your favourite singers and how their voices so defined them that you could recognise each in an instant – Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, David Ruffin, Eddie Kendricks in my case. Part of their impact was due to the never-changing qualities of their voices even though the songs and the act that went with them varied along the way. Apart from being a natural function the voice was a commercial apparatus and change, even if it were possible, was a hazard. As far as I know Tom Waits has never tried to sing a high-pitched Christmas carol.
Imagine my surprise then at finding two female singers, quite close in age but living on separate continents who can summon four or five voices each for their songs and still make these work. Sidsel Endresen, born in 1952, from Norway and Rachelle Ferrell, born in 1961, from Pennsylvania both took their time to get into the music business but have put their hearts and minds into it since.
SIDSEL ENDRESEN
Endresen studied English and anthropology in Oslo and London, returning to Norway to write poetry and do some acting before hooking up with a nascent soul band, Chipahua, as songwriter and singer in 1979. Her voice proved sweet enough for her to lead the band…
RACHELLE FERRELL
Ferrell attended Berklee College in New York to see where her childhood classical training on violin and piano might take her. In the first instance she took up teaching music at New Jersey State Council on the Arts. After this she moved into the unpromising slog of being a back-up singer to such soul artists as Lou Rawls, Pattie la Belle, Phyliss Hyman, and Miles Jaye, here in 1988 on a typical disco thrasher: Desiree.
But sometimes back-ups become front-liners, Luther Vandross being the most famous example. Rachelle was spotted by Capitol Records who gave her the chance to test her vocal talent, precisely an amazing six-octave range, by way of a 1990 jazz album, First Instrument. They also deployed such luminaries as Terrence Blanchard (trumpet), Michel Petrucciani (piano), Stanley Clarke (bass) and Wayne Shorter (tenor saxophone). A ‘safety-first’ collection of jazz standards, the album was tucked away as an exclusive release in Japan. But here she is on her debut, ready to unleash her gymnastic vocal techniques. Prepare for blast off:
ENDRESEN
Over in Norway, Sidsel’s voice had now been recognised by the prestigious ECM label, which has most of the top European jazz artists under contract. Teaming her up, as with Ferrell, with a distinguished trio – Norwegian trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer, English pianist Django Bates and veteran drummer Jon Christensen – was a statement of confidence for the album So I Write. And on it her soul voice is set aside as she pitches it in a higher register with a reflective tone. The gentle tempo of the songs and her wintery voice drape a beautiful melancholy over the album, like the photographic covers of most ECM albums. Bates’ piano work is luscious. Spring gets the vote as top track.
FERRELL
Rachelle Ferrell produced her self-titled second album in 1992, reverting to her soul voice on a dozen or so lilting soul ballads. There is more warmth and fluidity about her singing here but there is still a regular dip into her repertoire of long-held notes or octave cascades in the final stages of the songs. The tracks are all excellent, but she shows up best on I’m Special, a defiant departure from the soul relationship ‘girl needs boy’ trope, to ‘girl tells boy he needs her’. Here Ferrell is performing the song at the 1994 Newport Jazz Festival on a decidedly blustery day.
ENDRESEN
Sidsel recorded a second ECM album, Exile, in1994, with the same musicians as the first with cellist David Darling added. The Dreaming stands out as the best track but otherwise there is a less coherent theme than So I Write. Happily, in the same year she teamed up with fellow Norwegian pianist Bugge Wesseltoft, having met each other at a summer jazz seminar. Their first album together, Nightsong, is full of variety – an a cappella version of the soul classic Chain Of Fools; and versions of Judy Collins’ I Think It’s Going To Rain Today; and Rodgers and Hart’s The Lady Is A Tramp. Endresen’s voice adapts to all the required styles – jazz, pop, swing – but best of all to a jaunty folk tune that formed the album’s title.
FERRELL
For a few years after the second album Ferrell travelled to perform at festivals in Africa and Europe, Montreux, The North Sea Jazz Festival in The Hague or Rotterdam and Umbria. She was accompanied for many years by George Duke, the celebrated keyboard player and his band, but she also gathered a collection of her own musicians. Here she is in Isère, in south-east of France, giving an enthusiastic audience in the surrounding amphitheatre of her gospel-tinged belter, I Can Explain.
ENDRESEN
Endresen’s third album with Wesseltoft, Out Here. In There, is by far the finest of the three, not surprising given that they worked together for 10 years. The title track is an entrancing mix of pop and jazz with Endreson’s voice changing from a Marianne Faithful-style posh girl to a high-pitched echo, then intimate whispering. Wesseltoft’s atmospheric backing mixes electronic percussion and flute with a beat of lyrical piano chords. The accompanying video seems to be an apt vision for the lyric about life’s journey.
Out of time, you count every minute of your stolen time
Fast as we can go
Half your time and half your world is one
Another day may yet be done
Travel light, can’t take it with you
Map of time, photographs of a face
Of an image
All your hopes rest on this riddle
Right or wrong
On the same album Endresen returns to another folk-style voice with Birds, mostly hushed and framed by simple piano backing. The song works on a simple metaphor, a little like Paul McCartney’s Blackbird, but is distinctive in its own right.
FERRELL
In 2000, Rachelle took time off from touring to record her third album, Individuality (Can I Be Me?), marking her entry into the already crowded Nu-Soul scene, dominated on the female side by Mary J Blige, Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu. The album reached No16 in the R&B charts and curiously No1 in the US jazz charts, despite it being a top-class chunk of soul and funk. Perhaps it was a way for her jazz fans finally to win her deserved recognition? In any case Ferrell’s voice is at ease with the musical style and her old friend George Duke nurtured the songs, most of which were written by Farrell herself. Duke is on keyboards, Tony Maiden on guitar and Lil’ John Roberts on drums for the album’s hit song (No11 in the R&B charts), Satisfied.
ENDRESEN
Here is a jazz quiz question – what do you get when you put two German musicians and a Norwegian singer together to perform a song written and composed by an Englishman? The answer is Shadows In The Rain with Endresen’s vocals, Christof Lauer’s soprano sax, Jens Thomas’ piano and music and words by Sting. It turns out to be an incredibly happy pop-jazz marriage.
FERRELL
In 2002, Ferrell produced just one more album, Live At Montreux Jazz Festival, a compilation of her performances between 1991-97 which was successful in the US jazz charts. By her own admission, the travelling for festivals had become a strain, and a quieter schedule was organised. But she was always in demand to appear on other artists’ records and in concert with the likes of George Benson. Then in 2006 she contributed a song to the soundtrack of the film Madea’s Family Reunion. Once again, her voice produced something startlingly moving, a deep country blues song about women’s struggles in bad relationships and the effects they had, entitled Wounds In The Way.
Maybe there wouldn’t be so many failed relationships
We might even had a ghost of a chance of just loving each other – body, mind and soul
As time passes by they begin to multiply
There are wounds in the way
Adding up secretly like the rings of an old oak tree
There are wounds in the way
ENDRESEN
Sidsel collaborated with trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær on regular occasions as support singer, lyricist or lead vocalist. Molvær once played at a rave attended by more than 5,000 Nordic headbangers in a disused fish factory, with an array of musicians and DJs, to create his own wall of sound. His later work mellowed greatly though he still deployed his favourite tricks – mutes, loops, samples, electronic sound waves – and alongside Tomasz Stanko became Europe’s most accomplished trumpeter. On his 2005 album ER he selected Endresen’s song about relationships, Only These Things Count, the lyric sounding like one of her poems, and then decorated the track with his elite squad of musicians. The combination of his trumpet and her voice provides a real highlight in both their careers.
Standing here beneath the stars I wonder did we travel far or nowhere?
Could our time be better spent if nothing else was heaven sent like they were?
Now the night is on the run, fading, bless this morning, new day dawning
Only these things count…
THE B-SIDE
After her many years of pop, soul, folk and jazz, Sidsel Endresen moved on to more exploratory concepts over the last 20 years, deploying her voice as a musical instrument, creating abstract soundscapes and improvising lyrics. She has also been the co-creator of an opera, the composer of a film soundtrack, and the organiser of several poetry-reading concerts and she has curated a number of jazz festivals. She also teaches at The Norwegian State Academy of Music. She is the winner of multiple awards and, at 74, still out there performing.
Rachelle Ferrell had continued to tour despite the absence of an album to promote. She has performed with George Benson, Phyllis Hyman, George Duke, Will Downing and exalted bass player Marcus Miller, and has appeared at various tribute concerts to soul singers who have passed away. She had plans for a fifth album The Art And Soul of Rachelle Ferrell but two years ago she was stricken by what her management described as ‘health, wellness and life-related hardships’.
There was an instant surge of funds raised by her fans through the musicians’ charity Sweet Relief which supports artists who have fallen on hard times or succumbed to illness. Some well-known names from the past have received benefits – not all singers are as successful as Taylor Swift – via donations, merchandise sales and dedicated concerts. The latest bulletin is that Rachelle, now 63, is making good progress. Whether she will record again is a matter secondary to her full health. We still have her voice which has been memorable right from the start of her long journey.