| Home | Jazzter | Links | Discusite | What's New |
"When arranging vocal music, you come across several possibilities. You can just leave out the band, and fill in the harmonies; you can also try to replace the band and take over the various functions of the instruments. Or you start from the voices in the first place and that simply is the composition. The colours and shades a human voice displays can create an atmosphere that makes the lyrics superfluous."
This is a quote from the booklet of the Sequoyah CD "Subtle Shades".
Sequoyah is:
| Soprano | Nicole Kruythoff |
| Mezzo-soprano | Annemarie van der Wijk |
| Alto | Inge van der Staaij |
| Contra-alto | Suzanne Nehring |
Sequoyah presented their first album in April 1997. `Subtle Shades' is a joy to anyone who appreciates a cappella music. It represents both covers of well-known pop-songs (e.g. It's all right by Eurithmics) and new compositions (e.g. Chikago). Their repertoire strongly reminded us of their male Dutch counterpart Montezuma's revenge. But they definitely have a style of their own!
They chose to record the songs as natural as possible in one take and without dubbing. This is both their great strength (resulting in a fabulous `Variations on Ooh Ya' (original theme by Bob Stoloff), a charming version of `Cloudbusting' (a Kate Bush original)) and their great weakness (The first line in `I remember Clifford' is definitely out of tune spoiling the rest of the song!).
But boy, do these ladies show great promise for the future! So try to see one of their performances if you can.
1. Same ole love
2. If I were a bell
3. Weakness in me
4. One of a kind
5. Cloudbusting
6. Variations on Ooh Ya
7. Chikago
8. I remember Clifford
9. It's alright
10. After the love has gone
11. If you leave me now
12. Take care
Big plus: Variations to Ooh Ya (They told us it took them two years of practise before it sounded `right'.).
Big minus: Take care (Susanne Nehring is forcing her voice into `soul'-mode. Big mistake!), I remember Clifford (Disappointing first line).
Nicole Kruythoff, van Cittersstraat 37b, 3022 LG Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: (+31)-10-4256631
This page created and maintained by Hans & Nicoline Voss
Comments? Please mail them.
Last changed : 24 March 2000