Ancienne Belgique is one of Brussels', and possibly Belgium's, best concert venues. It's right in the centre of town, and hosts a wide variety of contemporary music - not just rock and pop bands, but jazz, folk, hip-hop and others as well - and also arranges a number of free open-air gigs during the summer.
Lisa Ekdahl is a Swedish jazz singer/songwriter, who sings mostly in Swedish, but sometimes in English. She has a very delicate, almost child-like voice - very unlike the great jazz singers like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, but really very evocative, both in her own songs and in the jazz standards.
And on Sunday evening, I went to see the latter in the former, and very much enjoyed it.
As some of you know, I am... let us say not well-disposed towards the Swedes at the moment, and I was unsure about whether to go to this gig - I love Lisa Ekdahl's music, but I didn't know whether I could cope with a whole evening of Swedish. As it turned out, though, that wasn't an issue as her set was entirely in English - which was actually a bit disappointing, because I love some of her Swedish stuff. She mostly sang songs from her albums When Did You Leave Heaven and Back To Earth, and most of them were wonderful - the only one that didn't work for me was Björk's It's Oh So Quiet, because she didn't make a real contrast between the quiet and loud parts, and I don't think the song is anywhere near as effective without it. Her Cry Me A River, though, was beautiful.
Lisa Ekdahl is a Swedish jazz singer/songwriter, who sings mostly in Swedish, but sometimes in English. She has a very delicate, almost child-like voice - very unlike the great jazz singers like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, but really very evocative, both in her own songs and in the jazz standards.
And on Sunday evening, I went to see the latter in the former, and very much enjoyed it.
As some of you know, I am... let us say not well-disposed towards the Swedes at the moment, and I was unsure about whether to go to this gig - I love Lisa Ekdahl's music, but I didn't know whether I could cope with a whole evening of Swedish. As it turned out, though, that wasn't an issue as her set was entirely in English - which was actually a bit disappointing, because I love some of her Swedish stuff. She mostly sang songs from her albums When Did You Leave Heaven and Back To Earth, and most of them were wonderful - the only one that didn't work for me was Björk's It's Oh So Quiet, because she didn't make a real contrast between the quiet and loud parts, and I don't think the song is anywhere near as effective without it. Her Cry Me A River, though, was beautiful.
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