nership with two free-jazz players, Otis Sandsjö mer squall on the way, as Cadotsch makes the on tenor saxophone and Petter Eldh on bass. most of the alluring melody. !e subtly intense swirl of the instrumental- !e companion release Speak Low ists—Sandsjö’s multiphonic e#ects, Eldh’s vis- Renditions presents the recordings as digital- ceral thrum—helps reinvest such songs as ly sliced and diced by various remixers, set- “Don’t Explain” and “Strange Fruit” with ten- ting the original performances among beats sion and truth. and atmospheres. !e new mix of “Some Other For all its Northern European cool, Spring” adds the skittering live drums of Tilo Cadotsch’s singing has an intensity of its own. Weber, while other tracks are recast as "oating Her tone is deceptively neutral, with lightly grooves or glitchy abstractions; some sound as accented English, but she cuts to the heart of if the original record were coming through a these songs from another angle, with an almost static-laced, in-and-out shortwave broadcast, a classical purity of intonation and a serene sense pleasantly disorienting e#ect. of rhythm. She has internalized the jazz mes- Such is the spell that Cadotsch, Sandsjö and sage of vintage Billie Holiday—the hand-in- Eldh cast on these albums that it can make glove $t with her players, an artful sense of the one feel that this is the only way age-old stan- bittersweet—without aping timbre or phras- dards should be approached: not slavishly but Lucia Cadotsch ing. And Cadotsch reinvents “Willow Weep fearlessly, with an unfettered imagination Speak Low For Me” beautifully, embroidering fresh melo- approaching that of the songs’ originators. YELLOWBIRD/ENJA 7761 dy into a new intro and coda. —Bradley Bambarger !e title track has the air of real life to it, Speak Low: Slow, Hot Wind; Speak Low; Strange Fruit; Ain’t Got with Cadotsch’s fetching vocal interrupted by a No, I Got Life; Don’t Explain; Deep Song; Some Other Spring; Willow Speak Low Renditions saxophone solo that fumes and subsides like a Weep For Me; Gloomy Sunday; Moon River. (46:00) YELLOWBIRD/ENJA 77614 Personnel: Lucia Cadotsch, vocals; Otis Sandsjö, tenor saxo- lover’s spat. !e typically striking arrangement phone; Petter Eldh, bass. Speak Low Renditions: Some Other Spring feat. Tilo Weber of “Moon River” gives the song as much grit (Frans Petter Remix); Don’t Explain (Julian Sartorius Remix); Strange So ingenious is the way vocalist Lucia Cadotsch as glow, a sweet tune turned into a tone poem. Fruit (Marc Lohr Remix); Deep Song (Dan Nicholls Remix); Slow, Hot Wind (Evelinn Trouble Remix); Speak Low featuring Julian Sartorius reimagines the canon of standards that the And for those who know Henry Mancini’s (Frans Petter Remix); Don’t Explain (Colin Vallon Remix); Willow Weep For Me (Joy Frempong Remix); Ain’t Got No (Trummerschlink songs feel fully in the here and now, with zero “Slow, Hot Wind” via Sarah Vaughan or Johnny Remix); Moon River (Marc Neyen Remix); Moon River (Don Philippe hint of faded lounge-act nostalgia. !e singer, Hartman, Cadotsch and company deliver a dif- Remix). (53:00) Personnel: Lucia Cadotsch, vocals; Otis Sandsjö, tenor saxophone; a 33-year-old Zurich native living in Berlin, has ferent experience, sultry but also dramatic. Petter Eldh, bass; Tilo Weber, drums; Julian Sartorius, percussion. accomplished this in a deeply integrated part- Sandsjö’s circular breathing sounds like a sum- Ordering info: jazzrecords.com/enja JUNE 2017 DOWNBEAT 71.