British-Australian Vocalist Hetty Kate Launches Ambitious Four-Album Global Journey with "Jazz in Four Seasons: Spring, Vol. 1"

First installment of multi-year project recorded in Prague with Czech musicians, incorporating cimbalom and reimagining standards in unexpected time signatures

While most seasonal jazz albums content themselves with thematic song selection, British-Australian vocalist Hetty Kate has conceived something far more ambitious: a four-volume series that will trace the seasons across continents, recorded exclusively with local musicians in non-Anglophone countries far from jazz's traditional capitals. The first installment, Jazz in Four Seasons: Spring, Vol. 1, recorded in Prague with four Czech jazz musicians and featuring special guests on violin, flute, and the rarely-heard cimbalom, arrives today on Lisez l'Etiquette Records.

This is not a predictable collection of songs with "spring" in their titles. Hetty Kate and her Czech collaborators (guitarist Libor Šmoldas, pianist Jiří Levíček, bassist Tomáš Baroš, and drummer Tomáš Hobzek) have reimagined the repertoire to embody the season's mercurial character. Rodgers and Hammerstein's "It Might As Well Be Spring" unfolds in 7/4 time. Duke Ellington's "I Like the Sunrise" blooms with the shimmering, bell-like tones of Rob Millett's cimbalom, a Central European stringed instrument that adds distinctive cultural texture. A medley interweaves Albert van Dam's "Another Spring" with Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields' "April Fooled Me," creating the kind of sophisticated pairing that reflects spring's own duality: promise and disappointment, awakening and melancholy. Rick Margitza's arrangement of "Inchworm" brings the heavyweight saxophonist's harmonic sensibility to Frank Loesser's deceptively simple song.

"Prague holds a particular place in my heart," Hetty Kate explains. "Years ago, I drove alone from Paris (more than a thousand kilometers) to meet a band for my very first European concert tour, which began in this city. Beginning this project here felt like both a return and a renewal."

The choice of repertoire reflects careful consideration of place and meaning. "Duke composed 'I Like the Sunrise' for Liberia's independence centennial, a hymn to freedom and renewal. The Czech Republic knows resilience, knows what it means to welcome the sunrise. That's why I wanted the cimbalom, a traditional, folkloric instrument heard throughout Central Europe, on this particular song."

The project reflects Hetty Kate's own nomadic artistic life. British-born, Australian-raised, and Paris-based since 2017, she has performed across 28 countries over two decades, from New York's Winter Jazz Festival to Japan's Sapporo International Jazz Festival. She spent five years as featured vocalist with James Morrison's touring band and has sung with the Melbourne, Sydney, Hong Kong Philharmonics, and Czech National Symphony Orchestra. Morrison has described her as having "a stage presence only matched by the clarity of her voice." Although Hetty Kate's 2013 swing album remains one of the genre's top-selling recordings globally, her artistic curiosity has led her toward more rhythmically complex, harmonically adventurous territory, without abandoning the emotional storytelling and accessibility that have defined her work.

"I'm interested in music that surprises you the way spring does," Hetty Kate says. "That exquisite melancholy of walking beneath flowering trees while gloriously, unapologetically alone. Thesudden downpour after days of sunshine. The frenetic energy of everything blooming at once. These aren't just metaphors. They're in the arrangements, the time signatures, the instrumental choices."

Recorded at Studio Svarov in late spring 2024, edited in Piacenza, Italy, and mixed and mastered by Grammy Award winner Michael Perez-Cisneros, the album benefits the Czech Union for Nature Conservation (ČSOP) through first-year sales proceeds. Future volumes will continue Hetty Kate's exploration of how jazz (that quintessentially American art form) has been embraced and reinterpreted globally, with recordings planned for South America and Asia.

Critics have praised Hetty Kate's vocal precision and poise. "One of the best swing-style singers on the current scene," writes Will Friedwald, while Alain Thomas of Couleurs Jazz notes, "Her vocal line is poised, and her phrasing is precise, on point." John Shand of the Sydney Morning Herald described her work as reminiscent of "a good champagne: simultaneously effervescent and restrained."

Jazz in Four Seasons: Spring, Vol. 1 is available today on Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music, and all major streaming platforms.

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ABOUT HETTY KATE British-Australian vocalist came up in the vibrant Melbourne Jazz scene, has released ten albums and performed across 28 countries over two decades. Featured vocalist with James Morrison's touring band from 2012-2017, she has appeared at major international festivals and performed with orchestras including the Melbourne, Sydney, and Hong Kong Philharmonic. Based in Paris since 2017.

CONTACT 
office@hettykate.com
www.jazzinfourseasons.com

LISTEN 
Purchase : https://hettykate.bandcamp.com/album/jazz-in-four-seasons-spring-vol-1 
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