Live recordings from "Gilleleje Jazzklub"

1. Beautiful Ohio
2. Blues At Sunrise *o
3. Move The Body Over *
4. Same Old Love #o
5. Begonia (Mavounzy) 5:49
6. Faraway Blues *o
7. Georgia Grind *
8. What A Friend We Have In Jesus
9. Take Her To Jamaica #
10. Collegiate
11. Every Woman's Blues *o
12. When My Dreamboat Comes Home
13. Can I Sleep In Your Arms Tonight #*

Total playing time: 73:41

Sarah Spencer (ts, vo*)
Derek Winters (tp, voc#)
Kjeld Brandt (cl)
Bengt Hansson (tb)
Hans Pedersen (p)
Erling Lindhardt (bjo, tgo)
Stefan Kärfve (b)
Claus Lindhardt (dm)

It’s hard to believe but this band sounds virtually indistinguishable from a genuine New Orleans group of the 1940s or 1950s. In fact after I’d put this on the turntable and gone out of the room, I forgot which CD I was playing, came back in and wondered when the American Music label had released this! The key to this assimilation of the genre comes from the total absorption into the music and all it stands for by – in particular – visiting trumpet man Derek Winters, tenor sax ace Sarah Spencer and clarinettist Kjeld Brandt. That’s not to say that the rest of the eight piece here are any less died in the wool dedicated New Orleans aficionados – they are – it’s just that the people I’ve mentioned are stand outs. There are no egos on display here – just a total immersion into the idiom. One factor that helps is that this is a live club recording – the atmosphere is tangible. Verdict – great stuff and in particular the singing and tenor work of the delightful Sarah. Her vocals are so deeply “southern” they could have been for the Black Swan label back in the 1920s – well done that girl…  Verdict – encore 

Burt Thompson in Just Jazz, December 2009

“New Orleans Delight” is a name that is surely by now familiar to most lovers of traditional jazz. The Danish/Swedish band is a six-piece group that often, for their frequent festival appearances and tours, invites a guest trumpet player to join them. Derek Winters, trumpet player from the U.K, who appears on this recording, often gets the nod in this regard. While they occasionally invite a second guest, they do so more rarely. In 2008 they also invited tenor sax player Sarah Spencer, originally from the U.K, now domiciled in the U.S., and a very good sax player. The recording took place in Gilleleje, a small town on the northernmost tip of the island Zealand, Denmark, about 35 miles north of Copenhagen, during a tour that year.

Most of the tune list will be familiar, except perhaps for Blues at Sunrise, Same Old Love, Take Her to Jamaica (with its interesting breaks and piano solo where Pedersen manages to make the piano sound like the steel drums so common in the Caribbean), Every Woman's Blues, and Can I Sleep in Your Arms Tonight, Lady (which is a reworking of Red River Valley or We Shall Walk Through the Streets of the City-the title is your choice-at a very slow tempo).

The band plays at its customary high level of proficiency, and the two guests fit in very well, making for a much larger sound with the additional harmonies the two extra instruments provide. And Ms. Spencer boots the band along with hard driving choruses on sax, for the like of which one has to go back to someone like Capt. John Handy, undoubtedly one of her inspirations. The opening number, Beautiful Ohio, serves as a nice “introduction” to the guests as it opens with the six-piece instrumentation, and on the second chorus the two others join in. While speaking of intros, mention must also be made of Pedersen's beautiful opening on piano of Blues at Sunrise, and Lindhardt's drum lead-in to When My Dreamboat Comes Home, a kind of funky beat akin to that of the modern street bands in New Orleans, setting a most appropriate laid back tempo and preparing us well for the drum solo which comes later towards the coda. But ensemble work plays a prominent part in almost every tune, and I found it particularly striking in the romping Collegiate where the excitement builds with each chorus, the two guests contributing mightily to this.

However, I was not as enamored of Ms. Spencer's vocal efforts as was Derek Winters, according to his liner notes; but I know that others have also held her vocals in high esteem. Nevertheless I'm afraid I don't share in such enthusiasm. She attempts to sound like a black blues singer in the vein of Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, et al., but she is not black or of that culture, and I just don't find it convincing. So for me Ms. Spencer's vocals fall short and come close to being a little too raucous now and again. I was also rather puzzled as to why she would choose Every Woman's Blues and then leave in the identification with Billie Pierce in the lyric, and why she would take Faraway Blues (this is the first time I have heard lyrics for this blues) and give it such a strident vocal treatment.

But other than the vocals, this CD provides some great listening pleasure. Ordering information can be obtained by contacting neworle@nsdelight.dk (e-mail) or visiting www.new-orleans-delight.dk (web site). I know of no other distribution plans.

Geoff Boxell

It was with some trepidation that I approached this CD. Having a front line of clarinet and trombone, NOD frequently have guests to help fill it out; usually a trumpeter, but often a sax player as well. The trumpeter on this occasion is Derek Winters, who I have said elsewhere, I think fits in best out of all the outstanding trumpet/cornet players who have guested with NOD. Another guest on this CD features tenor sax player: Sarah Spencer. It is Sarah who caused the trepidation. I have a CD of her with her own band, Rue Conti, from 1992. I also have some CDs with her playing with a Big Bill Bissonnette band. In the past I have found her to be too dominant in the ensemble playing and raucous and repetitive in her solos. It is with great pleasure that I can assure you that she has matured to such an extent that I would not have thought I was listening to the same musician. From the first tune onwards I relaxed and enjoyed the jazz, and good jazz it is too. Not quite up to the standard of the late George Berry but Sarah is getting there and I will be quite happy to follow her progress on later CDs.
I also found Sarah's singing* a revelation. In the notes it says that she has listened to and used her knowledge of the recordings of Ma Rainey, Clara Smith, Ida Cox and many others. True no doubt and I can pick up strains of them in her voice, but I have to confess that every time I hear her moans she has the 'Every Woman Blues' or ask me to 'Move the Body Over' so she can have the 'Georgia Grind' all I can think is that she sounds like a female George Melly!
IN the sleve notes, Derek Winters gives great credit to the NOD backline, and indeed they are , as always, rock solid and versatile. An indication of both skill & versatility are the rolling West Indian rhythms on 'Begonia' and 'Take her to Jamaica'. On the latter Hans Pedersen makes his electric piano take on the sound on a steel drum; very appropriate. Whilst on the topic of an electir instrument let me state that, although in general, I don' like to hear them in a traditional jazz band, I am fully appreciative why Hans uses one. Acoustic pianos are funny things and easily get out of tune and being so large the poor pianist, whether a jazz of small dance band one, is at the mercy of what whatever the venue provider has lined up for him; an electric piano ensure that the instrument used is always in tune and always have the right 'sound' (I have seen Bilk's pianist, Stan Grieg, performing one week on a grand piano and the next on what looked and sounded like a battered old pub upright).
Recorded live at Gilleleje Jazzklub the music is, as always with NOD and sound engineer Jorgen Vad, well balanced and clear. The tunes are a mix of the well known, the little used and the rather obscure. Well worth the money you will invest in it.