Celebrating more than two decades as a jazz singer, Swedish vocalist Anna Pauline Andersson returns with Lucky To Be Me, a set of 10 songs recorded in New York with pianist and arranger John Di Martino.
The programme combines nine standards, show tunes and Michel Legrand favourites with one original, ‘Just One Song’. The album grew out of a mentorship with Janis Siegel, who joins Andersson for the title track.
The New York sessions feature a first-rate band led by Di Martino, with saxophonist Craig Handy and trumpeter Freddie Hendrix heard last week in Sligo at the core, while Siegel, Salieu Dibba, Aaron Heick and Randy Brecker make guest appearances.
Born in Kalmar and raised in Höganäs, Andersson grew up in a musical household and was performing publicly from the age of four. Early influences ranged from Ella Fitzgerald and Anita O’Day to Joni Mitchell. Pauline later studied in Copenhagen before completing a master’s degree at the Malmö Academy of Music in 2012. Her debut album Meant to Be (2011) was nominated for Sweden’s Orkester Journalen Golden Record award and since then she has worked with musicians including Nils Landgren, Viktoria Tolstoy, Jesper Thilo and Gunhild Carling.
There is an unaffected warmth to Andersson’s singing that never feels imposed on the material. Her phrasing is unhurried and conversational, capable of turning reflective one moment and quietly uplifting the next. Lucky To Be Me moves easily between wistfulness and optimism, and throughout Di Martino’s sympathetic arrangements give the songs room to breathe. It’s an accomplished, unfussy vocal album that values melody, storytelling and swing in equal measure.
This release is included in a list of what I reckon are the top vocal jazz of the albums so far. Read it below.
