Alongside the singing sits a long-running interest in how the music works — voice, improvisation, education and aesthetics.Trained in both music and education (Auckland, then Columbia in New York), Louise keeps active research and writing interests in these...
Improvising isn’t inventing from nothing — it’s listening, then answering.In a good group the line moves between players like talk: a phrase offered, caught, turned over, handed back. Preparation and stylistic understanding are what make that...
The voice is the one instrument you can’t put down.Inseparable from breath, body and memory, it carries both the tune and the words at once — which is its gift and its difficulty. Treating it as a fully musical instrument, rather than a vehicle for lyrics...
Why do singers keep returning to the same handful of old songs?A standard is not a fixed thing to be reproduced but a frame to be re-read — the same harmony and lyric giving up something different in every set. The interest lies less in the tune than in what a...
A short gathering of what reviewers have made of the records.“Characteristically classy.”— Chris Parker, Jazzwise, on Invitation7 Deadly Sings drew notices in Jazzwise and London Jazz News, who followed the song-suite through the seven sins.
