Nina Ebbenhout – When we kiss

Singer Nina Ebbenhout presents herself on her debut album ‘When we kiss’ in a surprising and confident way. The album title (taken from one of the two own compositions she includes) speaks of a feeling of romance in her vision of life and music. A look at the other songs she chose confirms that: ‘Cry me a river’, ‘Close to you’, ‘Devil may care’, ‘Here’s that rainy day’. There are even more classics from the American songbook here, sung by many, always different, and Nina Ebbenhout adds with poise and confidence her very own, emotional vocal approach.

With a striking feeling for delivery, stressing and prolonging different notes and especially with a well-chosen and essential ‘time’: keeping the songs open, leaving space, so that vocals and accompaniment together are getting more ‘voice’. Nina Ebbenhout knows how to sing ‘jazzy’, but she can be the classic ‘songstress’as well ( ‘Both sides now’), who takes place behind the piano for her own, very personally frased love song ‘Confused’ (she studied piano at the conservatory).

The jazz-element is stressed in the tasteful arrangements by piano- and keyboardplayer Menno de Boer, who makes some striking choices. As for the attractive and sensitive ‘fills’ by young jazzmusicians like Susanne Alt (soprano and altsax), David Lukács (tenorsax, clarinet) and René ten Cate (vibes). Or as in his ‘latin feel’ for an unusually fast and swinging version of ‘The days of wine and roses’, in which singer Nina does her own backing vocals. ‘Love me like a man’ sings Nina…musically speaking the request is almost superfluous.