The Big Picture Kat Edmonson

• 1 Rainy Day Woman 03:28
• 2 You Said Enough 02:55
• 3 Oh My Love 02:49
• 4 Avion 02:48
• 5 Crying 03:25
• 6 All The Way 02:50
• 7 You Can't Break My Heart 03:50
• 8 Till We Start To Kiss 03:44
• 9 The Best 03:25
• 10 Dark Cloud 03:26
• 11 For Two 04:24
• 12 Who's Counting 04:10
• Total Runtime 41:14

Info for The Big Picture

Kat Edmonsons Debütalbum 'Way Down Low' wurde von Kritikern und Fans weltweit in höchsten Tönen gelobt. The New York Times verglich das Album mit einem 'farbenfrohen Frühlingsstrauß', und The Boston Globe sprach von 'einem der schönsten Vokalalben seit langem'. Auch Deutschlands größte Frauenzeitschrift Brigitte lobte ihre 'ungewöhnlich perlende Stimme'. Die Platte erreichte auf Anhieb Platz 1 in den Heatseekers Album Charts und schaffte den Sprung in mehrere Bestenlisten des Jahres 2012. Darüber hinaus stand die sympathische Sängerin mit Künstlern wie Jamie Cullum, Chris Isaak oder Gary Clark Jr. auf der Bühne.

Das neue Album 'The Big Picture' wurde von dem mehrmals für einen Grammy nominierten Produzenten Mitchell Froom (der u. a. mit Paul McCartney, Sheryl Crow und Suzanne Vega zusammenarbeitete) aufgenommen. Das Album ist inspiriert von alten Filmklassikern und Pop Songs der 1950er und 60er Jahre und bringt ihre außergewöhnlich süße und zarte Stimme hervorragend zur Geltung. Kat Edmonson beschreibt die Entstehung der gefühlvollen Songs so: 'Die Titel kreisen nicht um ein bestimmtes Thema, doch gibt es Gemeinsamkeiten, wozu auch der bei mir stets latente Einfluss von Spielfilmen und Filmmusik gehört. Ich hatte immer das Gefühl, dass Musik und Film zusammengehören, denn es waren alte Filme und Musicals, die mein Interesse an Musik weckten.'

„Das Album „The Big Picture“ ist umwerfend, das beste des Jahres.“ (Prisma)

„Edmonson scheint ihre Handschrift gefunden zu haben.“ (MDR Figaro)

„Das neue Album der texanischen Sängerin Kat Edmonson „The Big Picture“ ist eine Überraschung.“ (Jazzpodium)

„Das erste Stück ‘Rainy Day Woman‘: Streicher-Pizzikati, ein Amy-Winehouse-Saxofon, James-Bond_Gitarren plus großes John-Barry-Orchester – allein dieser Song wirkt trotz melancholischer Anklänge stimmungsaufhellender als vier Großpackungen Johanniskraut. […] Selbst traurige Songs wie ‚You can’t break my heart‘ oder ‚Crying‘ verströmen das Gefühl von Leichtigkeit, von Loslassen, von Lebenslust.“ (Stern)

„Ob zeitlos, ob unzeitgemäß – Kat Edmonsons drittes Album ist wunderschön in seiner Schlichtheit. Es lebt von eingängigen Melodien, die sich einem aber nie aufdrängen, und einer Stimme, die angenehm zwischen Soul, R&B, Country und Jazz oszilliert, gekrönt von zurückhaltenden Arrangements, die fast schon „akustisch“ zu bezeichnen sind. […] Fazit: uneingeschränkt sympathisch.“ (Stereo)

„Mit ‚The Big Picture‘ legt die 31-Jährige aus Texas ihr drittes Album vor – einen hinreissenden Flirt mit Elementen aus Folk, Jazz und Filmmusik. So nostalgisch wie ein schwarz-weiß-Film aus den 40er Jahren. Das swingt federleicht und immens eigenständig.“ (Audio)

„Die amerikanische Sängerin [liebt es] auf ihren Alben grandiose musikalische Panoramen zu entwerfen. […] Ganz großes Kino.“ (Jazzthetik)

„“The Big Picture“ ist ihr drittes Album, glänzt mit eingängigen Melodien, sanften Rhythmen und gelegentlichen Streichern, die über einem tendenziell soulig-folkigen Klanggebäude schweben. Unterstützt von Edel-Produzent Mitchell Froom und einem Team, das entspannt im Retro-Sound der sechziger und siebziger Jahre schwelgt, entwickeln sich ihre Lieder zu charmanten Miniaturen mit Country-Intarsien und einer Prise Swing, die trotz eigenen Kompositionen die grundsätzliche Verwurzelung im Great American Songbook nicht verleugnen.“ (Crescendo)

Kat Edmonson
aged 26, has one album to her name, and it’s been out for just a few months. She has had no formal training, no big-shot mentor. Instead she has a preternaturally gifted voice, sense of rhythm, and ability to swing. Where other singers her age tend to belt out a tune, she retreats, nearly whispering the lyrics, with a timbre that recalls Blossom Dearie. Comparing Edmonson to Norah Jones and Madeleine Peyroux doesn’t quite work; she’s more jazz-focused than they are, even if her set list is more contemporary than theirs. With an imaginative repertoire that includes jazzy remakes of the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven’’ and the Cardigans’ “Lovefool’’ and updates of such classics as “Angel Eyes’’ and “Just One of Those Things,’’ Edmonson might be the most promising American jazz singer to come along since Cassandra Wilson.

“Jazz is progressive, and it’s alive,’’ she says. “I wanted to make it fresh. I wanted to make it sound like I was recording this music in 2009 and still remain timeless somehow.’’

In an interview from her home in Austin, Texas, Edmonson talks matter-of-factly about her life and career. Her nature is unassuming and modest. She sounds as though she feels genuinely blessed to be singing for a living rather than working at a Starbucks or for a real estate broker, both of which she was doing a few years ago.

Music came to her through osmosis. There were no lessons. Growing up in Houston, she got acquainted with the American songbook through the old records her mother played on the stereo and the old movies she popped into the VCR: musicals with Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Danny Kaye, and Bing Crosby. By the time she was 9, she was writing songs.

By high school she was consuming music obsessively, but it wasn’t a career path. After graduation, she moved to South Carolina and enrolled at the College of Charleston, intending to study interior design and furniture design. Still, music beckoned, and she started singing - pop songs, her own compositions - at a blues club there. But the hectic schedule of studying full time, working full time at a coffee shop, and singing at night was taxing. And tuition was growing expensive.

She turned her attention back to Texas, this time to Austin and its thriving music scene. She enrolled in a community college, planning to study during the day and sing at night. “When I was driving home after registration, I heard this song on the radio, a guy singing about not ever going to class in college and always hanging out and singing for his friends,’’ she says. “I laughed and said, I can relate, because it was so much like me. I realized right then I would pull out of school and pursue a music career.’’ She withdrew from college and began looking for work with local bands.

In 2002 she auditioned for “American Idol’’ and wound up in the group of 48 invited to Hollywood, but she was quickly dismissed (“You just don’t look like a star, dog,’’ Randy Jackson told her). She returned to Austin and had a series of jobs: waitress, telemarketer, nanny. She sang at open-mike nights. In June 2005 she found herself at a Monday night jazz jam at an Austin club called the Elephant Room. It was there that she realized jazz was her calling.

Mike Mordecai, a trombonist who’s been running the jazz jam since 1980, remembers the first time Edmonson came in - and recalls pegging her wrong. He assumed she was just another “chick singer,’’ as he puts it. “I’m kind of rolling my eyes,’’ he says. “She was young and cute. We’re like, OK, what do you want to sing? She had a nice voice. She started coming in every week. A few weeks into it, it started becoming apparent that she had something special.’’

The door to a music career was opening, but it wasn’t wide enough. Edmonson needed to find more gigs, so she quit her waitressing job and found 9-to-5 hours with a real estate broker. Soon that became problematic too. “My enthusiasm for the job began waning almost immediately, because I was staying up really late at night to sing,’’ she says. “My boss called me into his office one day; he said I wasn’t the energetic girl he hired. At that moment I realized there was no time to waste.’’ She told her boss he was right, and she quit.

Edmonson has spent the past three to four years singing full-time, mostly in Texas but occasionally elsewhere. She played a few dates in the Northeast in the spring and comes back this way next Sunday for her Tanglewood debut.

The invitation to play Tanglewood came after Dawn Singh, who programs the Tanglewood Jazz Festival, heard her CD, “Take to the Sky,’’ and was struck by her restrained style.

“There’s something about her voice that’s really soothing,’’ Singh says. “There’s also something about her personality, her down-to-earth attitude, that I really like.’’

Edmonson seems to take it all in stride, happy to be doing what she loves, flattered that someone might like her singing. There isn’t a trace of entitlement in her words. She credits her pianist and arranger, Kevin Lovejoy, for making her interpretations of standards and pop songs sound so fresh. She talks about her goals in broad terms, with wide-eyed optimism.

“I want to tour, everywhere I can, all of the world,’’ she says. “I want to play more festivals. I already have ideas for another record. I want to do this for the rest of my life.’’

-Steve Greenlee, The Boston Globe

Booklet for The Big Picture