(Vocal Jazz) Asjo (Ann-Sofi Söderqvist's Jazz Orchestra / Ann-Sofi Soderqvist's Jazz Orchestra) - Move - 2017, MP3, 320 kbps

Composer/conductor: Ann-Sofi Söderqvist
Special guest: Anders Åstrand, vibraphone, percussion
Vocals: Lena Swanberg

It's tempting to easily believe it after listening to the new album with Ann-Sofi Söderqvist's Jazz Orchestra (ASJO), "Move". An album with suggestive, personal material and captivating complexity. Nevertheless, it is far from any experimental or "difficult" big band jazz that the composer / organizer / songwriter Söderqvist offers. In its unhealthy subtlety, its shadows of secrecy, its unexpected disclosures, "Move" may be just what is easy to see as female moves. With a multifaceted song soloist (also author of text) like Lena Swanberg is already the human voice that appeals to us female.
The big bandjazzen have probably been masculine enough, not to say macho, both in terms of material and execution, from Basie and beyond. But the new direction of the "cool" big bandjazzen in the sixties with Gil Evans and Miles Davis has always been an option (as I would like to call female). And in Sweden, the original Norrbotten Big Band continued on the road under Tim Hagans - in collaboration with Ann-Sofi Söderqvist ("Grains", 2011).
In ASJO, several of the soloists are also veterans from NBB; orchestration, melancholy and rhythmic complexity sometimes feel almost as taken over by Hagans. But ASJO never plagiarises, sometimes cites - and last and last hears its own voice in rewarding dialogue with role models and traditions. With the help of both new and experienced instrumentalists.
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