(Vocal Jazz, Contemporary Jazz) Karo Glazer (with Lars Danielsson, John Taylor, Mike Stern, Klaus Doldinger, Joo Kraus a.o.) - Crossings Project - 2013, WEB, FLAC (tracks), lossless

Thanks to the European success of “Normal”, Karo Glazer had a chance to develop her talent on the biggest jazz scenes of Europe and that created the basics for the “Crossings Project”. From the beginning she was cordially supported by Lars Danielsson and Krzysztof Ścierański. The later friendship with Klaus Doldinger and Mike Stern turned out to be the most influential and let Karo create an album on a world scale.
Karo decided to find a new, unique sound that would define her personal idea of contemporary jazz in the company of her nearest – friends and in the same time fantastic musicians. “Crossings Project” stands for mutual inspiring and constant dialogue where every musician is an essential part and an individual voice. Crossings is a constant process, a common search for new values.
As the artist herself says, each of the invited guests was for her at some stage of her life a source of great inspiration and they influenced the way she composes, what she sings and who she is as a person. In the contemporary music, what is most engrossing is created on the borders and that is why ”Crossings Project” is so much colourful and multifaceted and talks to the listeners in so many, different ways.
The idea of Crossings appeals to the most basic assumptions of jazz – the music of freedom which by definition knows no bounds and whose very essence is to find an individual language used by an artist to express their emotions.

CROSSINGS PROJECT is an international musical project created by Karo Glazer, composer, arranger vocalist and producer, who invited to collaboration many of her friends from various parts of the world. Among her outstanding guests were: Mike Stern, who used to play with Miles Davis, one of the top three most unique and recognizable guitar players in the world; Lars Danielsson, the star of ACT record company, whose double bass and cello playing has gained worldwide esteem; John Taylor, legend of ECM, a piano player who is one of the most sophisticated musicians in the history of jazz; Klaus Doldinger, founding member of Passport, a famous jazz-rock group, composer of film scores for. e. g. "Neverending story" or "The Boat"; Joo Kraus, known to the younger generation as a founder of hit group Tab Two; and lastly Thomas Sanchez, a Mexican percussionist. Polish names are also among those outstanding stars invited by Karo to the project: Marek Napiórkowski, Krzysztof Ścierański or Andrzej Olejniczek. Moreover, it is important to name the input of a fantastic string quartet from philharmonics in Munich. To sum up, the crème de la crème of contemporary jazz, the lineup of dreams that created a set tones and colors so original that managed to draw the attention of American and European jazz critics. The final sound is the outcome of cooperation between Karo Glazer and Martin Walters, American music producer, multi-awared with the Grammy Award who worked with e.g. Terri Lynne Carrington and her "Mosaic Project", Esperanza Spalding and Spyro Gyra.
All that makes CROSSINGS PROJECT a special event with a global reach. The extraordinary nature of this project results also from the fact that the guests invited by Karo Glazer never had a chance before to cooperate in such set of artists. The connection of Mike Stern's expression with the Scandinavian minimalism of Lars Danielsson and the sophisticated phrase of John Taylor supported by the elaborated rhythmical layer created by Thomas Sanchez is just mind blowing. Due to the attention-drawing compositions and arrangements that Karo Glazer has written specially for the CROSSINGS PROJECT it was possible to combine the talents of musicians with such different passions, sensitivity or temperaments into one incredible story. This is how the idea of CROSSINGS was brought to light and became an inspiration for further projects in similar company, also in concerts.
All the musicians admit unanimously that working on this album was great fun and aventure. To sum up, seventeen musicians took part in the COSSINGS PROJECTS, they come from Sweden, Great Britain, Germany, USA, Spain, Mexico and Poland. The recording sessions took place in Sweden, Germany, Poland and USA. The live premiere of the project took place on the 10th Nov'2012 during the prestigious jazz festival ""Ingolstadter Jazztage" in Germany where Karo Glazer performed among such stars as Marcus Miller or Maceo Parker.
As the artist herself says, each of the invited guests was for her at some stage of her life a source of great inspiration and they influenced the way she composes, what she sings and who she is as a person. In the contemporary music, what is most engrossing is created on the borders and that is why CROSSINGS PROJECT is so much colourful and multifaceted and talks to the listeners in so many, different ways. The idea of CROSSINGS appeals to the most basic assumptions of jazz -- the music of freedom which by definition knows no bounds and whose very essence is to find an individual language used by an artist to express their emotions.
The album presents the listeners with 10 premiere compositions. CROSSINGS PROJECT is broadly understood contemporary jazz in the vocal form. The album as such may be recorded acoustically (one exception being Mike Stern) but the sound of it is both energetic and spatial. Thanks to the cooperation with Martinem Walter, it is an audiophile album. Even though various musical instruments are used along the way, it seems that a basic instrument here is Karo Glazer's voice which in many cases constitutes the core of a given piece. Karo can adapt her voice to all sorts of possible techniques. One can find scat singing, mouth percussion, countless vocal harmonies and classical singing. The album was organized so as to let great individualities work together. Every single piece was in some way dedicated to a given artist and composed to fit each of Glazer's guests' musical sensitivities. Karo Glazer kept tabs on the whole process from the moment of the first creation of a musical piece to the final production of the album.