The Gidon Nunes Vaz Quartet returns to NativeDSD with their album Ebb Tide from Sound Liaison. Gidon Nunes Vaz Quartet featuring Denise Jannah won last year’s NativeDSD Album of the Year Award for Jazz Ensemble with Vocals with their album Embrace Me – also available at NativeDSD). Ebb Tide features Vaz on Trumpet and Flugelhorn and his ensemble playing some of the best-known ballads of all time.

The classic songs on the album include Only the Lonely by Sammy Cahn & Jimmy Van Heusen, Bewitched by Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart, Angel Eyes by Matt Dennis & Earl Brent, The Summer Knows (Theme From Summer of ’42) by Michel Legrand, Gone With The Wind by Allie Wrubel & Herb Magidson, What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life by Michel Legrand, I Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out To Dry by Sammy Cahn & Jule Styne and Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me by Rube Bloom & Ted Koehler. Vaz also contributes You’re Too Good which he composed.

Vaz says “The making of this album reflects such a cycle for me. Closing a chapter and the start of something new, while being thankful for what has been and at the same time opening up for the unknown.

The pieces selected for this album connect to this process. I found great joy in the beauty of these compositions. The recordings of Frank Sinatra were another inspiration for picking these songs. He inspires me to approach the music in a way a singer would do, to play the trumpet in a more vocal manner and to connect with and portray the essence of the song.”

Each recording starts and ends with the main artist alone in the hall, the only interplay being the acoustics of the hall and his mind. No audience is present except the ghosts from the past. The music must create an Arch, going from the single-instrument performance to the more complex band performance and back to the last solo performance.

The same principle goes for the engineering; each recording starts out with only one Josephson C700S 3-channel stereo microphone. As the music gains in complexity more microphones may be deployed, the only limit being the imagination and technical skills of the recording engineer. The producer and engineer must aim to make the album have a unifying sound, despite the different recording techniques employed.

Gidon Nunes Vaz Quartet
Gidon Nunes Vaz – Trumpet & Flugelhorn
Timothy Banchet – Piano
Cas Jiskoot – Double Bass
Yoràn Vroom – Drums