Tómas R. Einarsson: LET JAZZ BE BESTOWED ON THE HUTS

This CD is a collection where several singers interpret music written by the Icelandic bassist / composer Tómas R. Einarsson to a wide array of poems. The title tune, and For Europe is absent, take their name from a poem by Wystan Hugh Auden (1909-1973), which appeared in the famous travel book he wrote with Louis Mc Neice, Letters from Iceland, in 1937. In this poem Auden gives up his hopes of Iceland as an islolated society, unaffected from the evils of modern times – and surrenders, not altogether unhappy – “Let jazz be bestowed on the huts.” The well-known American trombonist / singer, Frank Lacy, sings the two tunes Einarsson wrote to the poem.  

“When my two sons grow up, they are half-Icelandic, I will give them this CD to listen to. I love its energy and wit and melancholy. I love the scalding and contradictory passions that I detect beneath its rythms, negro blues geysering out of a chill, white landscape.”

The English novelist  Nicholas Shakespeare, in his liner notes to the CD. 

"Tómas R. Einarsson´s Let jazz be Bestowed on the Huts is a wildly diverse collection of songs partly inspired by the poetry of WH Auden (the original friend of Iceland?). The nine tracks are sung by eight different singers, including KK and former Sugarcube Einar Örn (whose singing certainly won´t appeal to everyone)… The whole album is a quirky mix of styles that work perfectly."

Andrew Clarke / Grapevine, Iceland (Issue 18)

All tracks by Tómas R. Einarsson.

Released 2005