The 40th Anniversary Edition of Fairytales is the final of many incarnations of singer Radka Toneff and pianist Steve Dobrogosz’s jewel of a duo album. In the course of the 40 years that have passed since its release – on LP in 1982, CD in 1986 – Fairytales has sold well over 100 000 units, making it the top-selling Norwegian jazz record ever, and was also voted Norway’s best album of all time in a poll of Norwegian musicians in 2011. For four decades the sometimes delicate and sometimes robust melodic intimacy between the singer and the pianist, and the fragile strength with which they imparted their lyrics and music, has cast a spell on listeners from all music scenes. Constantly new generations are enthralled by the 41 auditorily minimalist but eloquently narrative minutes, and this final version, with improved sound quality, brings us closer to the magic of the Toneff/Dobrogosz duo than ever before.
Radka Toneff (1952-1982, Norwegian mother, Bulgarian father) was established in Norway and its neighbouring countries as a unique singer and leader of her own band when she and American pianist Steve Dobrogosz (1956- ), who was living in Sweden, recorded Fairytales in February 1982. They had known each other since 1979, when Dobrogosz took over as the pianist in Radka’s quartet, in which bassist Arild Andersen, for several years Radka’s closest musical collaborator and record producer, and Danish drummer Alex Riel formed the remainder of the ensemble. When playing their quartet gigs Radka and Steve often introduced a duo or two, and they had also recorded an improvised duo version of the standard “My Funny Valentine”, which was produced by Erling Wicklund at the end of a radio recording session at the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, in November of that year.
This remarkable ad hoc duet, which would become track five on Fairytales, had inspired Steve to play with the idea of a duo album, and when Radka, a few years later, was wondering whether to follow up her two albums “Winter Poem” (Zarepta, 1977) and “It Don’t Come Easy” (Zarepta, 1979) with an orchestral recording as her third record, Steve suggested the duo format as a diametrically opposed alternative. Radka eventually welcomed the idea, but as the Zarepta label had been dissolved she had no record company behind her. None of the record companies in Norway or Sweden had given the duo a positive response until the Norwegian Jazz Federation’s newly launched label, Odin, entered the scene. Rolf Grundesen, then head of the Federation, suggested recording the album at the Grieg Hall in Bergen, which had digital recording equipment and a good grand piano. Nine songs were recorded in the course of two evenings, with Arild Andersen producing.
Fairytales had a solemn epilogue when Radka died under tragic circumstances a few weeks after the album was released and had begun to go from strength to strength. In retrospect, though, it is not the memory of the loss of an incomparable singer, but rather the content of what Radka accomplished together with her American duo partner that keeps Fairytales alive. “It’s not just the sound itself, but it’s also about how Radka sings, about the sensitivity in her voice,” Steve Dobrogosz has said. The pianist describes Radka as a superb, forthright and genuine interpreter who was “at her best” with Fairytales, and he rejects any implication that she sounds especially lonely or depressed, or that the album can be construed as part of any autobiographical timetable.
The sum of singer Radka Toneff was, naturally, more than the parts she was able to display on Fairytales. But when practically all subsequent singers in Norway, from Sidsel Endresen up to the young talents of today, get a warmth in their voices and eyes when they talk about Radka as an artistic ideal and a source of inspiration, it is not least because they heard Fairytales at some point, and were sold. The fact that the album has also been the impetus for an interest in Radka that has produced posthumous records, books, radio documentaries and countless articles only confirms the strong position the album still occupies in the Norwegian music scene, a position that this 40th Anniversary Edition will further reinforce.
Terje Mosnes, January 2022
credits
released August 19, 2022
Recorded in 16 Bit/50.35khz on a Telefunken X80 by Bergen Digital Studio in Grieghallen, Bergen, February 15th - 17th 1982
Producer: Arild Andersen
Engineer: Tom Sætre
«My Funny Valentine» - recorded in analogue at NRK, Oslo, November 26th 1979
Producer: Erling Wicklund
Engineers: Jan Erik Tørmoen / Egil Johan Damm
Mastered by Helge Sten at Audio Virus Lab
Front cover and coverdesign : Kalina Toneff
Cover restoration and design: Nick Alexander
Photos: Hans Beskow
Liner notes: Terje Mosnes
Translation: Shari Nilsen
The original Telefunken MX 80 machine that was used for the
recording and transfer provided by Ringve Museum, Trondheim
Restoriation of the original machine by Svein Vatshaug and Rune Sund Nordmark at Nasjonalbiblioteket, Mo i Rana
Digital transfer from original mastertapes by Thomas Bårdsen and Geir Iversen at Nasjonalbiblioteket, Mo i Rana
Radka Toneff (1952-1982) was established in Norway and its neighbouring countries as a unique singer and leader of her own
band when she and American pianist Steve Dobrogosz (1956- ), who was living in Sweden, recorded Fairytales in February 1982. They had known each other since 1979, when Dobrogosz took over as the pianist in Radka’s quartet....more
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