Written by: Alex Green
Chrissie Hynde’s new solo album Valve Bone Woe will be out this Fall.
Titled Valve Bone Woe, the 14-track album is a collection of covers by everyone from Nick Drake to John Coltrane to Frank Sinatra. The album was recorded at Air Studios in London.
An innovative assembly of songs all reinterpreted through a jazzy lens, Valve Bone Woe is a bold effort which stands in stark contrast to the music currently dominating the charts. In a press release heralding the album Hynde says of its genesis: “A few years back when I saw an obit in the paper for the valve-trombonist, Bob Brookmeyer, I mailed my jazz sax-playing brother, saying ‘R. I. P. Bob Brookmeyer.’ Terry, a man of few words, responded with ‘Valve Bone Woe,’ a kind of Haiku beatnik prose. I thought that was a perfect title for the album I’d been working on with producer Marius de Vries. After we’d recorded ‘I Wish You Love’ for the Eye Of The Beholder soundtrack I’d often expressed a desire to do more along those lines. What eventually emerged was the idea to do what we refer to as our Jazz/Dub album…”
The album’s first single is a creative reading of Charles Trenet’s “Que Reste-t-il De nos Amours?”
Meanwhile, Hynde will team up with the LA Philharmonic at an album preview concert at the Hollywood Bowl (July 6). On September 14 she will take part in the BBC’s Proms In The Park in Hyde Park and on November 24 she will appear at the Royal Festival Hall.
As for her future musical forays, Hynde says: “I’m not hugely interested in branching out into other musical genres, being a devout rock singer as such, but jazz is something I grew up around (thanks to my bro) and I’ve always had a soft spot for it. I often bemoan what I regard as a decline in melody in popular music and I wanted to sing melodies. Plus, I have a penchant for cover songs, it’s the surprise of singing something that I didn’t think of writing myself that turns me on. Jazz got side-lined by Rock & Roll in the 60’s, but now the demise of rock seems to be heralding in a newfound interest in it, the most creative and innovative musical forms of the 20th century. I’m happy to jump on the bandwagon.”
LISTEN TO “QUE RESTE-T-IL DE NOS AMOURS?”
PRE-ORDER VALVE BONE WOE
CHRISSIEHYNDE–VALVE BONE WOE
Tracklisting:
How Glad I Am [Jimmy Williams, Larry Harrison]
Caroline, No [Tony Asher, Brian Wilson]
I’m a Fool to Want You [Frank Sinatra, Joel Herron, Jack Wolf]
I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes) [Hoagy Carmichael]
Meditation on a Pair of Wire Cutters [Charles Mingus]
Once I Loved [Norman Gimbel, Vinicius De Moraes, Antonio Jobim]
Wild Is the Wind [Ned Washington, Dimitri Tiomkin]
You Don’t Know What Love Is [Don Raye, Gene De Paul]
River Man [Nick Drake]
Absent Minded Me [Jule Styne, Bob Merrill]
Naima [John Coltrane]
Hello, Young Lovers [Richard Rogers, Oscar Hammerstein II]
No Return [Ray Davies]
Que Reste-t-il de nos Amours? [Charles Trenet]
