Jazz Articles

Christine Tobin: A Thousand Kisses Deep

by Bruce Lindsay
March 25, 2014

A Thousand Kisses Deep brings together Christine Tobin's voice, Leonard Cohen's songs, a bunch of Premier League musicians and superb arrangements. What's not to like? Nothing. There's absolutely nothing not to like. Tobin is blessed with a distinctive, expressive, voice. She's also an artist who pursues her own vision with an admirable determination--and who isn't afraid to risk comparison with some of the finest writers of the modern era. That vision has seen her re-imagining Carole King's classic ...

Christine Tobin: Sailing To Byzantium

by Bruce Lindsay
June 18, 2012

On Sailing To Byzantium singer/songwriter Christine Tobin adds music to the poems of Ireland's much-loved William Butler Yeats (1865-1939). Get this wrong, and an entire nation might well demand answers: get it right and a richly imaginative and beautiful recording is promised. Tobin gets it right.Tobin's love of Yeats goes back to her teens in Dublin, when her first boyfriend would read her two of the poems: the beautiful “When You Are Old" and the mysterious “The Song ...

Christine Tobin and Liam Noble: Tapestry Unravelled

by Bruce Lindsay
July 13, 2010

For many jazz singers, the Great American Songbook is the body of work that must be delved into and reinterpreted. In more recent years, the work of writers such as Tom Waits and Nick Cave is emerging as the source for some fine jazz-based interpretations. The singer/songwriters of the '70s, perhaps surprisingly, have yet to become such a central part of the jazz vocal canon, but singer Christine Tobin and pianist Liam Noble may be set to change things with ...

Christine Tobin / Liam Noble: Tapestry Unravelled

by Chris May
June 14, 2010

After seven, mostly self-penned albums on the Babel label, Tapesty Unravelled is something of a departure for the Irish-born, UK-based singer Christine Tobin: all but one of the tunes are covers, and, for the first time, the setting is stripped down to a duo. But as on the earlier albums, Tobin weaves her signature mix of jazz and folk influences, while pianist Liam Noble ensures a high degree of “pure" jazz content.

As some will already have surmised, ...