Christina Gustafsson: My Move

Christina Gustafsson is sister of the better known Swedish jazz vocalist Rigmor Gustafsson. This is her second album, a follow-up to Moments Free (Prophone, 2007). Gustafsson feels herself to be part of the singer/songwriter tradition but employs a team of three text writers—Cecilia Åse, Helena Davidsson and Stefan Danielsson—who, she says, "have worked close together and talked about me (sic) thoughts of life right now and what the contents of the lyrics should be. That's the reason why the lyrics became very personal and intimate." The obvious question is: "Wouldn't they be still more personal and intimate if you wrote them yourself?"

There is the nasty suspicion that—having worked the trick with Rigmor—Svengalian forces are now trying to make the same formula succeed all over again with her sister.

Not that Christina Gustafsson doesn't have some vocal and, perhaps, musical talent. It's just that she hasn't developed it a great deal. Maybe this is the fault of her homeland. Swedes often refer to it derisorily as ankdammen, "the duckpond." And the impression here is of a small coterie of people doing their thing, then telling each other they've achieved a great result.

Had a little more thought and care been taken, and had an outside, more cynical eye been allowed to focus on the proceedings, who knows; perhaps Gustafsson could have been prodded into coming up with something truly original. As it is, there is really nothing here that you haven't heard before, many times over.

The feeling of déja vu sets in right from the start with James Taylor's "Your Smiling Face," and continues through three of Gustafsson's "personal and intimate" collaborations with Åse and Davidsson ("Take A Fall," "My Move," "Winter Has Gone" and "In the Light of New York") and one with Danielsson ("Standing Where The Changes Begin"). The impression is of bits and pieces taken from various popular musical forms and stitched together. To this are added English lyrics that are almost but not totally there ("Look at her—she's moving in New York"... "The road is about to wind"). Guitarists Max Schultz and Erik Söderlind are both gifted but are rarely given a chance to cut loose.

There are the obligatory standards: Harold Arlen's "I've Got The World On A String" and a rather edgy 5/4 version of "Stormy Weather," and Charlie Chaplin's "Smile," which Gustafsson does as a sometimes out-of-sync duet with bassist Martin Höper. Then there is a surprisingly good version of "Happy Talk" from South Pacific (1949), also performed as a duet with Höper, who this time wisely restricts himself to a purely instrumental role. Everything climaxes with a rather shy sing-along—with sister Rigmor and vocalists Sofia Pettersson and Lina Nyberg—of "Smiling Hour," taken from Sarah Vaughan's album, Copacabana (Pablo, 1979).