Sienna Dahlen & Bill Coon - Balladextrous (CD)

Release Date: 06/09/23

Guitarist Bill Coon and vocalist Sienna Dahlen navigate silence and shape time on their poingnant debut. They reside in spacious spontaneity.

'Se balader': a french verb meaning to stroll, wander or roam. In other words, a slow and easy movement through time. Musically-speaking, this is what Sienna Dahlen and Bill Coon set out to experience in early January of 2020 under a misty evening sky in Vancouver, BC. There was really no end goal, only the moment to honour, as living in a jazz ballad means remaining open and vulnerable while navigating silence and shaping time. We strive to sink into the soul of the story, reacting in the ways that the music needs us to do so. We listen and we follow through accordingly.

Lovers of the music that was made by people like Ed Bickert and Shirley Horn, (both masters of ultra-relaxed, soulful playing and vocalizing), Dahlen and Coon also feel most at home when residing in the realms of spacious spontaneity. The tempos and vibes on this album run the gamut of sometimes unpredictably minimal and quirky, sometimes 'dirgy', sometimes ballroom dance-ballad, sometimes rubato etc. (with the exception of the last song on the record which was included as a sort of tongue-in-cheek clin d'oeil as if to say 'yes, we like up-tempos too'!) Each of the tunes on the album,(many well-known and others not as much), has resided in Dahlen and Coon's respective repertoires for decades.

'Balladextrous' is a guaranteed mood-setter. It goes down well with a bottle of red shared among loved ones, a hot soak in a bubble bath or, perhaps a long and luxurious drive to the beach to catch the last rays of the sun. Whatever your fancy, we hope you enjoy the ride now as much as we did then.