A Time to Remember reunites the Albanian-Swiss singer Elina Duni with the quartet of her 2020 album Lost Ships. Time and memory run through the programme as a theme, linking Albanian and Kosovan traditional songs, American standards and new pieces written by Duni with her guitarist. The performances move between deep lyricism and light-footed folk rhythms, and the twelve songs, sung in several languages, sound like one continuous story.
The band is the same as before: Rob Luft on guitar, Matthieu Michel on flugelhorn and Fred Thomas on piano and drums. Luft, from the UK, and Duni co-wrote the five originals. Three songs are traditional, two from Albania and one, Mora Testinë, from Kosovo, and the standards include Sondheim's Send in the Clowns and I'll Be Seeing You. The Swiss flugelhorn player Michel often acts as a second voice beside the singer. The album was recorded in July 2022 at Studios La Buissonne in Pernes-les-Fontaines, with Gérard de Haro as recording engineer and Manfred Eicher as executive producer.
The opener Évasion sets words by the Belgian-Israeli poet Esther Granek to music by Duni and Luft, carried by flowing piano. Its title means escape. The Albanian traditional E Vogël (Little One) skips along with Duni's excited gasps on the turns of the melody, in close interplay with the guitar. Charlie Haden's First Song, with Abbey Lincoln's words, opens on Luft's echoing electric guitar before the voice enters, soft and yearning. Across the record Thomas switches between piano and a light, sparing touch on the drums, so the textures stay open and the voice always sits in front.
John Fordham made it his jazz album of the month in The Guardian, writing that few singers "manage to sound so intensely like themselves while drawing on such a variety of genres, languages, and cultural backstories". In The Scotsman Jim Gilchrist called it "a beguiling mix of new compositions, traditional Balkan material and standards", praising the band's sensitive accompaniment. Other reviewers singled out the blend of Duni's voice with Michel's horn on the title song and on Whispers of Water.
This is the CD edition, ECM 2781, first released on 16 June 2023.
