Vital Spark (Music of Kenny Wheeler) Dave Holland, Norma Winstone, Kenny Wheeler & London Vocal Project

• 1 Inner Traces 08:30
• 2 Will You Walk A Little Faster 05:25
• 3 Not Waving But Drowning 06:23
• 4 Jazzonia 05:37
• 5 Fuite D'Enfance 06:07
• 6 Vital Spark 07:33
• 7 Infant Joy 06:44
• 8 Heavenly City 07:14
• 9 These are The Things We Trust 07:28
• Total Runtime 01:01:01

Info for Vital Spark (Music of Kenny Wheeler)

Jazz legends Dave Holland and Norma Winstone, together with the versatile London Vocal Project, present Vital Spark—an album featuring a collection of Kenny Wheeler’s final compositions that were sent over time to Pete Churchill and brought to life through patient arrangement, deep listening, and mutual trust.

Vital Spark captures a rare unity between jazz ensemble and choir, revealing a sound that’s both unforced, delicate, reflective and full of Kenny’s character and energy. The music features new lyrics by Norma Winstone, alongside Wheeler’s settings of poems by Stevie Smith, Lewis Carroll, and William Blake. The result is unmistakably Kenny Wheeler: lyrical but unsentimental, harmonically rich yet spacious. For Dave, Norma, and Pete, this project is not a retrospective but a personal, shared act of remembering and reinterpreting, shaped by decades of friendship, collaboration, and quiet reverence for one of the most singular voices in modern music.

"Time and relationships have shaped this music, which brings together jazz, poetry and voices in an outstanding celebration of Wheeler's spirit. It has been a deeply personal project for many of those involved and a highly successful one that interprets and integrates Wheeler's lyrical and melodic style with the vitality of a large vocal ensemble." (WhatAboutJazz)

Norma Winstone, vocals
Dave Holland, bass
Nikki Iles, piano
James Maddren, drums
Mark Lockheart, tenor & soprano saxophone
John Parricelli, guitar (tracks 3, 4, 5, 7, 8)
London Vocal Project
Pete Churchill, director

Engineered by Alex Bonney and Marcus Locock with assistant engineers Luke Farnell and Tris Ellis
Mixed by Alex Bonney and Dave Holland at The Red Room and Earconnector studios, London
Mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound
Executive producer Dave Stapleton and Louise Holland

Norma Winstone
is a British jazz singer and educator. As a scholarship holder of London's Trinity College of Music, Norma Winstone studied piano and organ for three years. In 1971, she was named best jazz singer by Melody Maker, which led to her recording her first album under her own name. In 1977, together with John Taylor and trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, she founded the group Azimuth, which was described by the London Times as the most imaginative and interesting chamber jazz group in the world. Over the course of her long and impressive career she has worked with Kenny Wheeler, Steve Swallow, John Abercrombie, Dave Holland, Peter Erskine, John Taylor, Fred Hersch, John Surman, Jimmy Rowles, the NDR Big Band and more. She is also a jazz educator at the Royal Academy of Music. In 2001 Norma Winstone won the title “Best Vocalist” at the BBC Jazz Awards. In 2009 she was awarded the Jazzahead Skoda Award 2009. Her album Distances, recorded in 2007 together with Glauco Venier and Klaus Giesing, was nominated for a Grammy in 2009.

David Holland
Dave Holland is a renowned bassist, composer and bandleader whose passion for musical expression of all styles and dedication to creating consistently innovative ensembles has propelled a professional career of more than 50 years. A guiding light on acoustic and electric bass, Holland has earned top honors in his field, including multiple Grammy Awards and nominations and the title of NEA Jazz Master in 2017. The bassist’s virtuosic technique and rhythmic feel, informed by an open-eared respect of a formidable spread of styles and sounds, is widely revered and remains much in demand. His playing can be heard on hundreds of recordings, including more than thirty as a leader.

Holland first rose to prominence in groundbreaking groups led by such legends as Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Sam Rivers, Betty Carter, Herbie Hancock and Anthony Braxton—as well as collaborations with the likes of Chick Corea, Gary Burton, Jack DeJohnette, and John McLaughlin. He carries that enviable history with little fanfare and extreme humility; to him what matters most is the immediate musical project at hand. Fittingly, he is today more celebrated for the bands that he continues to assemble, record and perform with—ensembles which range from duos and trios to big bands, and often feature musicians like Steve Coleman, Robin and Kevin Eubanks, Jason Moran, Chris Potter, Eric Harland, Craig Taborn, among many others.

Holland’s recent releases include Without Deception, which reunites him with longtime collaborator Kenny Barron in a trio setting with drummer Johnathan Blake; Good Hope, as the adventurous Crosscurrents Trio with Chris Potter and Zakir Hussain; Uncharted Territories, an expansive and exploratory improvised session with Evan Parker, Craig Taborn and Ches Smith; and most recently Another Land, a trio with Kevin Eubanks and Obed Calvaire.

A Fellow of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, where he studied from 1965-68, Holland has received honorary doctorates from Birmingham Conservatoire in England and both Boston’s Berklee College of Music and New England Conservatory and this year from the Royal Academy of Music in London. He served as artistic director for the Banff Centre Jazz Workshop in Alberta, Canada for seven years in the 1980s and is currently an artist in residence at the Royal Academy of Music and New England Conservatory. Recently, Holland was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music —a rare honor, as membership is limited to 300 living musicians.

This album contains no booklet.