Fay Claassen is a Netherlands-based Jazz singer with a career of over 25 years and is a regular guest of highly renowned big bands and orchestras, from the Metropole Orkest, the Residentie Orkest and the Brussels Jazz Orchestra to the WDR Big Band. In 2011, Claassen was asked by pianist, trombonist and arranger Bob Brookmeyer to take the vocal role for his last album Standards (Artistshare), recorded in Munich and featuring his New Art Orchestra. Other jazz greats Claassen has worked with over the years include Toots Thielemans, Vince Mendoza, Paquito D’Rivera, Tom Harrell, Michael Abene, James Carter, Eric Vloeimans and Benjamin Herman.
Although very busy on the European continent Fay has hardly ever appeared in the UK. Last year she appeared at Scarborough Jazz Festival with pianist Barry Green who now lives in Rotterdam and rising star of the saxophone Emma Rawicz.
There has been quite a long gap since her last original band album (Luck Child, 2018), for which she won two Edison Awards (Vocal National & Audience), due to a combination of international collaborations with orchestras, her 25th anniversary tour, the pandemic, and several large-scale projects.
For the album Soulprint Claassen wrote nearly all of the material herself, or co-wrote it with her longtime bandmates: pianist Karel Boehlee, guitarist Peter Tiehuis, bassist Theo de Jong , and drummer Martijn Vink (New Cool Collective, Metropole Orchestra). Two songs were written by Claassen’s husband, Paul Heller of the WDR Big Band.
The songs on Soulprint present a musical reflection of her soul, a personal blueprint. At times quirky and complex, at others deeply connective and loving, the album tells her story as a wife, mother, and daughter and the personal development that has shaped her.
It’s nice to hear Claassen backed by a small band which generally features either acoustic piano or Fender Rhodes, electric guitar, electric bass and drums. On four of the tunes on the album there are no drums which leads to an even more intimate feel. When the drums are present they come across with real impact. On quite a few of the songs the sounds, harmonies, grooves and textures of the band evoke Steely Dan. This is an ideal accompaniment to Claassen’s voice. She has great delivery, tone, intonation and diction, with all the lyrics being conveyed very clearly.
The album opens with the song “Purity” which is a quiet rocky ballad written by Karel Boehlee and Simone Pormes. The song talks of the need to reconnect, stopping being someone else and being ready to agree to this purity.
“Vincente 78” is another light rock based song and relates the fact that she found out shortly before her father’s death that she has a half brother born in 1978 that she has never met.
“Feel The Beat” is an up tempo collaboration with Belgian singer David Linx which starts with a rubato section over sustained electric piano and guitar chords moving into a steady groove. The song features solos by guitar, electric piano and some scatting by Claassen.
“La Dame du Sans-Souci” has another lyric by David Linx, this time in French that follows a walk through Paris and is inspired by the film “La Passante du Sans Souci”. This reminds me of song that could have been written by Sting.
“Simple Song” is the first contribution by Paul Heller, Claassen’s husband and tenor sax player in the WDR Big Band. This slow shuffle has been recorded before both as an instrumental and vocal. “Good Times” is also by Paul Heller with a lyric by Robin Meloy Goldsby. This funk shuffle was written as birthday present to Claassen. This has also been previously recorded. Claassen joins in with the guitar solo on this scatting in unison then again trading a few phrases towards the end of the song.
There are two pieces on the album with a connection to Toots Thielemans, “Smiling Tears (For Toots)” and Thielemans’ jazz standard “Bluesette”.
“Smiling Tears (For Toots)” is a collaboration between Claassen and bass player Theo de Jong. This song evokes something that could have been written by Bill Evans in his latter years. This includes solos by fretless bass and piano.
“Bluesette” takes its standard intro with altered chords and changes it slightly then the song is performed as a samba rather than the usual Jazz waltz. This song allows all players to take a solo and Claassen also takes a scat solo. The intro is reused as an outro but with Claassen joining in.
“Fast Future People” written by Karel Boehlee with lyric by Claassen has a medium rock type groove and is about making one’s own choices in world driven by social media and AI.
The album finishes with the Latin groove of “Sacred Love and Soul Enlightening Blues”, a collaboration between guitarist Peter Tiehaus and Claassen. The chord progression to this song is a really good vehicle for improvisation with guitar and electric piano both soloing to good effect.
This is a very enjoyable album with some really good songs played by a fine band, showing not only Fay Claassen’s skills as a vocalist in a variety of different styles, but also as a writer. https://ukjazznews.com/fay-claassen-soulprint/
