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Cæcilie Norby

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Cæcilie Norby
Norby performing in Warsaw in 2011
Norby performing in Warsaw in 2011
Background information
Born (1964-09-09) 9 September 1964 (age 60)
Frederiksberg, Denmark
GenresJazz, pop, rock
OccupationSinger
Years active1985–present
LabelsBlue Note, Enja, ACT
Websitewww.caecilienorby.com

Cæcilie Norby (born 9 September 1964) is a Danish jazz and rock singer. She has performed as part of the bands Street Beat, Frontline, and One-Two. Since the mid-1990s, she has worked as a solo artist.

Career

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Cæcilie Norby in 2011

Norby was a founding member of the band Street Beat in 1982. For two years, she was a member of the jazz-rock band Frontline. From 1985 to 1993, she worked with singer Nina Forsberg in the rock band One-Two.[1]

In 1995, she turned to jazz and released her first solo album for Blue Note, titled Cæcilie Norby. The self-titled debut recording was co-produced by Niels Lan Doky as was followed by her album My Corner of the Sky in 1996. My Corner of the Sky prominently featured American musicians, including David Kikoski, Joey Calderazzo, Terri Lyne Carrington, Scott Robinson, Randy Brecker, and Michael Brecker. The repertoire for both albums included only a few jazz standards like "Summertime" or "Just One of Those Things". Instead, she and Lan Doky arranged classic popular songs for a jazz line-up, like "Wild Is the Wind", "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and a track by Curtis Mayfield on the first album, "The Look of Love", "Life on Mars", "Spinning Wheel" and "Set Them Free" by Sting on the second. For both albums Norby also wrote lyrics to compositions by Randy Brecker, Chick Corea, Don Grolnick and Wayne Shorter.[2] Both albums gained wide attention and five-digit sales, especially in Denmark and also in Japan.[3]

Her third album Queen of Bad Excuses, released in 1999, was a collaboration between her and Lars Danielsson, who already played bass throughout My Corner of the Sky. This time all compositions are originals by Norby, while she and Danielsson arranged, programmed and produced all tracks together. Danielsson played also guitar, cello, electric piano, keyboards and even drums on one track. With Ben Besiakov and long-time companion Lars Jansson on piano, Anders Kjellberg and Per Lindvall from Sweden alternating on drums with Billy Hart, who was also part of her debut recording, the line-up is accentuated by the guitar of John Scofield on more than half of the album, and saxophonist Hans Ulrik and Xavier Desandre Navarre on percussion.

Personal life

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She was born 9 September 1964 in Frederiksberg, Denmark, into a musical family. Her father, Erik Norby, is classical composer and her mother, Solveig Lumholt, is an opera singer.

Awards

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  • 1985: Ben Webster Prize
  • 1996: Best Recording Album in Japan
  • 1997: Simon Spies Soloist Prize
  • 2000: Wilhelm Hansen Music Prize
  • 2010: IFPI's Honorary Award

Discography

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With Frontline

  • Frontline (1985)
  • Frontlife (1986)

With One Two

  • One Two (1986)
  • Hvide Løgne (1990)
  • Getting Better (1993)

With DR Big Band

  • 2009: Jazz Divas of Scandinavia (Red Dot)

Solo albums

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Year Album Peak positions
DEN
[4]
1995 Cæcilie Norby  –
1996 My Corner of the Sky  –
1999 Queen of Bad Excuses  –
2002 First Conversation 2
2004 London/Paris (live album) 11
2005 Slow Fruit 20
2007 I Had a Ball: Greatest & More (compilation album)  –
2010 Arabesque 23
2013 Silent Ways 27
2015 Just The Two Of Us
with Lars Danielsson 		 –
2019 Sisters in Jazz
with Marilyn Mazur, Hildegunn Øiseth, Rita Marcotulli, Nicole Johänntgen, Lisa Wulff and Dorota Piotrowska 		 –
2020 Portraying  –
2022 Earthenya  –

References

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  1. ^ Buchman-Moller, Frank (2002). Kernfeld, Barry (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz. Vol. 3 (2nd ed.). New York: Grove's Dictionaries Inc. p. 161. ISBN 1-56159-284-6.
  2. ^ The track "African Fairytale" on My Corner of the Sky is actually Shorter's "Footprints", first recorded in 1966 on his album Adam's Apple and on Miles Davis' Miles Smiles of the same year.
  3. ^ According to her website
  4. ^ "Cæcilie Norby discography". danishcharts.dk. Hung Medien. Retrieved 11 May 2013.
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