Jazz icon Norma Winstone and exceptional pianist Kit Downes demonstrate just how inspiring a 45-year age difference can sound: With curiosity, a willingness to be intimate, and great musical openness, they create a moving dialogue between the generations.

It was her singing voice and avant-garde, wordless improvisation that first made Norma Winstone famous and later established her as a grande dame of European jazz. As early as the early 1960s, she was making the rounds in East London, singing on the stages of pubs and smaller venues. In the late 1970s, she founded the innovative trio Azimuth (not to be confused with the Brazilian jazz band Azymuth) with John Taylor and Kenny Wheeler. Even then, Kit Downes, the pianist by her side, hadn’t even been born yet.

Norma Winstone and Kit Downes are 45 years apart in age. Yet they are bound together all the more by a curious spirit, a willingness to embrace intimacy and nuance, and a shared thirst for adventure. Downes with his fragmentary piano playing, Winstone through her singing and poetry. She wrote the lyrics for their collaborative album *Outpost of Dreams*, which brings together compositions by Downes as well as works by other great musicians such as Carla Bley and John Taylor. Winstone breathes new life into them. A dialogue spanning several generations of artists.

“Suddenly we see a future / Slowly rising like a fountain,” sings Norma Winstone on the opening track “El.” Or as Downes said about her a few years ago: “I can’t wait to jump off musical cliffs with her again in the near future.” There’s so much history here, but even more anticipation for what’s to come.  

Followed by: Bill Frisell Trio