The FreeSong Suite

Greene Avenue Music 2009
60:03
3 Rooms/10 Tracks

Gone Fishin’
Night Ties
Joe’s Car

Personnel:

FV-voice, compositions
Anders Nilsson- electric guitar
Ken Filiano – bass, effects
Michael ‘TA’ Thompson- drums, percussion

1.  Seasons
2.  Dry
3.  Bob and Weave
4.  Night Ties
5.  Joe’s Car
6.  Stemming
7.  Gone Fishing
8.  Ideal Situation
9.  Heating Up
10. Seasons – Reprise

“…hypnotic in its flow, every song in the three sections of the suite a masterpiece of compressed story-telling…”
–Gary Lucas, guitarist/composer (from the liner notes)

View Lyrics for The FreeSong Suite HERE.

Some reviews of The FreeSong Suite

“A jazz singer who makes her notes slow, wide and meaningful—she often sounds like an evening-out of Betty Carter and Abbey Lincoln—Fay Victor uses a great and simple concept on The FreeSong Suite (Greene Avenue Music)…a studio recording organized like a live set. This means the band flows from one song into another, without knowing where it’s going next…these songs have distinct melodic character: fascinating ballads with Anders Nilsson’s country-bluesy guitar soloing, drum chants, some careful free improvising.”
-Ben Ratliff, The New York Times

“Victor’s soulful, emotive delivery combines with avant-tinged invention, placing her alongside great vocal innovators like Betty Carter, Jeanne Lee, Sheila Jordan…a truly creative singer with the chops to accomplish whatever she wants, but the good taste to ensure that substance always trumps style…The Freesong Suite is a vocal album that stands well above the pack; a welcome respite from the unwieldy preponderance of unimaginative vocal jazz albums hitting the market.”
-John Kelman, allaboutjazz.com

“The Fay Victor Ensemble’s The FreeSong Suite (Greene Avenue, 2009) is a tour de force of writing, improvisation and performance. Victor and her band paint one fluid word picture after another, linking these composed sections with free playing that is smart, muscular and emotional. From free improv to the blues to alt-rock and back again, The FreeSong Suite is easily one of my top 10 records of 2009.”
-Jason Crane, The Jazz Session

“The FreeSong Suite, peers into the NYC-based vocalist’s challenging and rewarding world of captivating vocal work and stirring spontaneity.”
-Andrew Zender, PopMatters.com

“Victor scats, vocalizes, chips, mumbles and sings bluesy chromatics or angular displays of dexterity, delivering the unexpected with beauty, depth and innovation.”
-Wilbur MacKenzie, All About Jazz-New York

“Victor has the chops, the phrasing, the band and the courage to make contemporary music that references contemporary culture and materials that range from Carter to Berberian to Sun Ra to Hendrix. This is sheer, unadulterated brilliance. Buy it!”
- Nilan Perera, Exclaim.ca, Canada’s Music Authority

“What you hear on this album is raw and quirky and powerful and full of feeling and surprise and particularities that reflect universal human truths. One of the unique listening experiences of this or any other year.”
-Mike Chamberlain, Hour – Montreal’s weekly Entertainment magazine

“One of the most interesting voices to have emerged in recent years…always manages magically to be herself and to propose a music that looks forward cleverly mixing elements from past and present.”
-Mauritzio Comandini, All About Jazz: Italia

“WOW! Very impressive record…A splendid record from the very first listen.”
-François Couture, Monsieur Delire

Purchase The FreeSong Suite:

itunes
amazon.com
cdbaby.com

YEAR END KUDOS for The FreeSong Suite

>>The Village Voice Jazz Critics Poll 2009 – 4th in the Best Vocalist Category

http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-12-29/music/2009-voice-jazz-critics-poll-the-results

>>Jason Crane’s Top 10 of 2009 – The FreeSong Suite was Jason’s TOP Pick for the Year

http://thejazzsession.com/2009/12/08/my-top-10-jazz-cds-of-2009/

>>AllAboutJazz-NewYork’s Best of 2009 – Best Vocal Releases/January 2010 Issue

>>PopMatters.com: The Best Jazz of 2009

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/117329-best-jazz-of-2009/

>>Laurence Donohue-Greene’s Top 10+ of 2009

http://www.jazzhouse.org/diary/2009/12/laurence-donohue-greenes-top-10-of-2009/

>>CKUT Jazz Director’s Top 20 list

http://jazzamuck.blogspot.com/2009/12/2009-top-20-jazz.html

>>Délire Actuel 2009 Demanding Music Top 30

http://blog.monsieurdelire.com/2009/12/le-top-30-des-musiques-exigeantes-2009.html

Cartwheels Through The Cosmos

ArtistShare 2007
50:58
8 Tracks

Leap Of Faith
Exchange Rate
Stray Dogs

Personnel:

Fay Victor-voice
Anders Nilsson-electric guitar
Ken Filiano-double bass, effects
Michael ‘TA’ Thompson-drums

Track Listing:

1          Leap of Faith
2          Exchange Rate
3          Its Coming
4          Spin
5          Pillow On My Ear
6          Along The Winding Way
7          Stray Dogs
8          Earth

View Lyrics for Cartwheels through the Cosmos HERE.

Press Quotes:

“It’s a borderless, cacophonous, in-your-face experiment in tone poetry and free-form expression. It’s tough.  It’s gutsy.  It’s brilliant.”
–Christopher Loudon, JazzTimes

“Complex, ambitious record…we can add Victor to the Betty Carter family of jazz singers, if we could find anyone else to fill out a family.” (A-)
–Tom Hull, Village Voice

“…actually stretches the definition of jazz vocals”
–JazzWise, UK

“Victor is the traffic director of a group methodology that surges into the interstellar regions of sound.”
–Glenn Astarita, New & Noteworthy Monthly Column, www.AllAboutJazz.com

“Taking jazz singing forward with a unique form of expression, Fay Victor delivers with authority. She reaches out with open arms to celebrate the freedom that comes with singing what you feel.”
–Jim Santella, Cadence

“CARTWHEELS THROUGH THE COSMOS is that rarity amongst contemporary vocal jazz releases: an album that doesn’t rely on a tired repertoire and looks, instead, for innovation in every corner. The beauty of Victor…is her blending of soulful delivery with avant-garde tactics. Her fearless exploration of a myriad of musical nexus points makes Cartwheels Through The Cosmos an album for those who normally stay away from vocal jazz.”
–John Kelman, AllAboutJazz.com

“I love it. It’s very special what you are doing. It’s a killer band and the whole concept is just fantastic!”
–Dave Douglas, Trumpeter

Purchase Cartwheels  ArtistShare at CDBaby and I-Tunes

Lazy Old Sun: LIVE/Life in the Lowlands

People Are Strange
Stealaway
Nico

Greene Avenue Music 2004
64: 22
11 Tracks

Personnel

Fay Victor-voice
Anton Goudsmit-electric guitar
Wolter Wierbos-trombone
Jacko Schoonderwoerd-double bass
Pieter Bast-drums

Track Listing:

1          Lazy Old Sun
2          People Are Strange
3          Laura
4          There They Are
5          Heading West-Way Out (Way Out West)
6          Stealaway
7          Magere Brug (Lean Bridge)
8          Nico
9          Keep It Busy, Keep It Moving (Saturday & Sunday)
10        Last Night I Had A Dream
11         BONUS

Press Quotes:

“…but a handful of albums by women including: Gunda Gottschalk’s Wassermonde, Satoko Fujii’s Illusion Suite, Susie Ibarra’s Folklorico and Fay Victor’s LAZY OLD SUN earned my unreserved admiration. The first and last in the list were particularly revelatory. Gottschalk’s skills on violin, exhibiting incredible incisiveness in a solitary recital setting, blew my mind. Victor’s European swan song with a crack Dutch combo in tow exposed a vocalist imbued with the best elements of past matriarchs like Abbey Lincoln and Betty Carter with an ear-tilted toward Euro-improv innovations.
-Derek Taylor, Dusted Magazine-The Year in Music Feature 2004

“A boldly inventive Betty Carter-Billie Holiday hybrid…the tremendously versatile Victor takes off into all sorts of curiously exciting directions…she’s a real find, a true original.”
-Christopher Louden, JazzTimes

LAZY OLD SUN puts a fresh new twist on jazz singing…her rich alto and perfect pitch allow the 4tet to play with the fringes of dissonance…it keeps hope alive that something fresh may still be coming for jazz singing.
-Phillip McNally, Cadence magazine

“Fay Victor is a gifted musician, possessed of flawless intonation, musical imagination, and inventive phrasing…this album deserves a first, a second, and a third listening.”
-William Grim, AllAboutJazz.com

“Sounds like a young Betty Carter with a bad case of wanderlust…a live set strong enough to win over all but the most anti-vocal jazz-fans…”
-Kurt Gottschalk, Signal to Noise

“…some intriguing vocalizing…invests every song with such emotional commitment that they all sound like her own originals even if they are an evergreen…the message from this session is clear—check out Fay Victor.”
-David Dupont, www.onefinalnote.com

Purchase Lazy Old Sun at Amazon.com and Cdbaby.com

Darker than Blue

Zootoon
Strollin’
Sometimes

Timeless Records, BV
Released 2001
67:42
11 Tracks

Personnel:

Fay Victor-voice
Vijay Iyer-piano
Anton Goudsmit-electric guitar
Marc Mommaas-tenor saxophone
John Hebert-bass
Steve Hass-drums

Track Listing:

1          Eclipse
2          The Zootoon
3          Tonight (House Party Starting)
4          My Reverie
5          Strollin’ (Nostalgia in Times Square)
6          Last Night’s Dinner
7          Star Eyes
8          What A Little Moonlight Can Do
9          Sometimes
10         In The City (Sham Time)
11         Detour Ahead

Press Quotes:

“She applies freedom and improvisation and constantly attacks her songs from unexpected directions…This is a fine CD from a singer who takes chances.”
-Cadence Magazine

“The music is almost self-propelled, sporting a sharp efficiency (…) a certain economy that can only derive from practice and reference. Fay Victor is a thinking persons’ jazz vocalist.
-C. Michael Bailey, AllAboutJazz.com

Purchase Darker Than Blue at Timeless Records

In My Own Room

Wave
Old Devil Moon
Every Time We Say Goodbye

Timeless Records, BV
Released 1998
57:47

Personnel:

Fay Victor – voice
Pere Soto – guitar
Marc Mommass – tenor saxophone
Jos Machtel – double bass
Marc Meader – drums
Walter Lampe – piano (track 11)
Hans Mantel – double bass (track 2 only)
John Engels – drums (track 2 only)

Track Listing:

1          All Blues
2          I Remember You
3          Ask Me Know
4          Wave
5          This Masquerade
6          Sister Sadie
7          All Of You
8          Skylark
9          Upside Down – Fleur De Lis
10        Old Devil Moon
11         Everytime We Say Goodbye

Press Quotes:

“4 and a half stars… She bends the lyrics, swings, sings ballads and the blues. Her delivery can be strong, sassy, smokey or sophisticated depending on the musical situation and the musical picture she wants to paint. Fay Victor has all the tools to be a major player in the jazz vocal scene.”
-Dave Nathan, All Music Guide

“Fay Victor emphasizing the lyrics as if she wrote them…identifies herself as a worthy addition to a legacy of fine jazz vocalists that are worth hearing.”
-Glenn Astarita, AllAboutJazz.com

“From Miles Davis’ “All Blues” until Cole Porter’s “Everytime We Say Goodbye”, Fay Victor effortlessly puts her own stamp on them…proves jazz is timeless…“
-Elegance Magazine, the Netherlands

Purchase in My Own Room at CD Baby and Timeless Records