Kaiso Stories
74:21
8 Tracks
Silkheart 2011

Personnel:
FV – conceptualist, voice,  production
Roy Campbell – trumpets reeds
Daniel Carter – reeds
William Parker – double bass gembri
Charles Downs – drums

Track Listings:

1. Maryanne Revisited
2. Three Friends Advised
3. Kitch Goes Home
4. Saltfish Refried
5. John Gilman Wants Tobacco
6. An Open Letter
7. De Night A De Wake
8. We Is We Trini

 

“Roots tributes rarely sound as fascinating or as cultishly seductive as Kaiso Stories…(Victor) gives you a sense of what Betty Carter would have sounded like with the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Trumpeter Roy Campbell and Daniel Carter play their roles as foils with graceful restraint while the great William Parker on gembri and duduk as well as double bass prods the singer with soulful finesse. Having emerged as a vocal artist with a real vision Victor rises to a higher level of inspiration here.”
— Lloyd Sachs, JazzTimes

“Victor is proving to be one of the most extraordinary vocalists on the scene today and here she comes off as actress sorceress and temptress working an area of rough declamatory improvisations in the tradition of Jeanne Lee and Abbey Lincoln but with her own burning passion and galvanic force….Other Dimensions is passionate and inspired on this disc and Victor is a wonder to behold. It’s been a while since I heard Free Jazz with this much holy fire in it. One of the best discs of the year without question .”
—Jerome Wilson, Cadence

“She approaches these songs with wide-open intent taking the lyrics (many of them slyly political) and adding her individual approach: stretching the syllables out using repetition singing long loopy melodic lines. While her style derives from Betty Carter and Jeanne Lee it’s her emotional core and rich honeyed vocal timbre that sets her apart. Other Dimensions In Music’s full-bore approach is perfect for the project rhythmically open yet with an African pulse underneath. The frontline blends with Victor in remarkable dialogues; Campbell in particular.”
—Robert Iannapollo, Signal to Noise

“While the record is steeped in Victor’s heritage even the accents and inflections she grew up hearing it’d be a mistake to call Kaiso Stories a calypso record. It’s free jazz with source material and as such is an unusual and wonderful album.”
–Kurt Gottschalk, The New York City Jazz Record

“Conjuring up the spirit of Jeanne Lee Fay Victor speaks sings and wails like a horn through variations of eight Caribbean tunes from the 1930s through early 70’s. A wonderful combination simultaneously true to its origins and entirely new.”  — Laurence Joseph, Montreal Mirror  *****

“Victor’s voice sonically melds with Carter and Campbell becoming a third horn adding compelling counterpoint throughout. In a civilized world with a forward thinking music industry and curious listenership in a culture a where Art was as valued as everyone likes to say it is Kaiso Stories would be a crossover sensation charting for months and finding a grateful audience that no Improvised music had found before. Until such time it is one for the initiated to treasure.” 
–Stanley Zappa Free Jazz

“The meeting between ODIM and Fay Victor (or a connection as characterized by Fay Victor in her touching and illuminating liner notes) gives birth to a music like a swollen river an awakened volcano which has been asleep too long and is finally revived. This is music of heritage and music of urgency.”
–Pierre Lemarchand Le Son de Grisli

“Vocalists are far and between in free jazz-but in Fay Victor one has come to the fore who is the equal of her co-musicians even if those happen to Other Dimensions In Music’s big guns…with a singer like Victor you are guaranteed immunity from sterile vocal performance and old hat tricks.”
–Guy Peters www.goddeau.com

“Fay dug deep into her roots in Trinidad and Tobago and came up with a handful of traditional songs to reinvent. What we have here is a blend of Caribbean melodies and swinging fluid occasionally ecstatic free jazz. This project is a complete success and a wonderful opportunity to discover this singer.”  
–Francois Couture Monsieur Delire

http://www.silkheart.se/release.php?catno=158