Jazz på engelsk: Finitys Destiny - Finity
There has been a long tradition in jazz to take songs from contemporary popular music and engage with them in a process of explorative transformation. Finity, on their new album "Jazz På Engelsk: Finitys Destiny" (a title with a tip of the hat to Jan Johanson’s “Jazz på Svenska”, as well as the subject of their new work) have acknowledged that tradition in their own unique way, and have focussed on a selection of songs by one of the millenium's most successful groups, Destiny's Child. Beginning with "Bootylicious", the album makes its intentions clear from the outset: exploration, transformation, celebration. Finity have already demonstrated that they eschew convention for convention's sake, instead favouring to travel where the music takes them, and they will frequently assemble the engine to power their journeys from musical parts that are rarely in contact elsewhere. Their take on "Independent Women Part 1" is simultaneously a statement of empowerment and fringed with an element of menace. "Say My Name" is transformed from an angular abstract form to future gospel music and back again. "Jumpin' Jumpin'" takes an exuberant view of the original, managing to capture both carnivalesque marching band elements and darkly complex free jazz contemplation. "Survivor" removes the outward confidence of the original to expose the doubt and temptations of resignation that any survivor might endure, before it reasserts itself and retakes its power. "Stand Up For Love", a track originally released by Destiny's Child as an anthem for World Children's Day in 2005, is here given the most straight ahead interpretation, but the instrumentation and arrangement yield different moods, and provide a poignant close to the album.
The arrangements of the songs are by Heida Karine Johannesdottir and Anja Lauvdal & Finity, and feature Hanna Paulsberg, Andreas Wildhagen, Torstein Lavik Larsen and Kyrre Laastad. "Jazz På Engelsk: Finitys Destiny" is Finity's second release for Jazzland Recordings, following up their acclaimed "We are the granddaughters of the witches you did not burn" (2019).