| Jazz |
Summary: A refined and poetic jazz album where Lilly Hertzman blends Nordic musical sensibility with literary depth, creating a thoughtful, immersive work that rewards attentive listening.
Lilly Hertzman Turns Jazz Into Poetry in a Luminous, Thought-Provoking Album
I came to Lilly Hertzman knowing only her name, and left startled. As is my habit, I began by listening without reading a single line about her. What followed was a jolt: a voice of striking delicacy and clarity, supported by musicians of exceptional caliber, the kind of finely honed ensemble one might associate with a polished release from the German jazz label ACT, long known for its pristine, Nordic-leaning productions.
Like many of the most compelling jazz vocalists to emerge from Northern Europe, Hertzman’s foundation is rooted in classical training. Yet what distinguishes her is not merely technical assurance, but her ability to animate her own cultural inheritance within the language of jazz. Listeners familiar with Nordic pop will recognize the atmosphere, a tonal introspection, a sense of space and restraint, but the real challenge lies in translating that sensibility into jazz form. It is a challenge she meets with quiet authority. By favoring an acoustic palette, piano, subtle rhythmic textures, and understated arrangements, the music creates an open field in which the voice can fully resonate. The production is meticulously crafted, achieving a clarity that feels both intimate and expansive.
For Hertzman, voice and music matter deeply, but the text is equally central. What emerges is not simply a singer, but a poet. These songs could stand, without embarrassment, alongside a contemporary volume of poetry. Her interpretive approach carries a literary weight that is essential to understanding her work: these are compositions rooted in the immediacy of the present, shaped by the anxieties and urgencies of the modern world. She transforms current events into poetic material, suggesting that art itself, in its form and intention, participates in shaping not only beauty, but meaning.
She describes the album’s third track, “Fire in the Sky,” in terms that illuminate this vision. Though written more than a decade ago, it speaks to what she calls “a mad world of sad affairs these days.” The world is burning, metaphorically, and increasingly in literal terms, through climate crises, war, and intensifying conflict. The future remains uncertain. Yet even amid “deep despair and the heat,” the song insists on the necessity of hope, on the belief that shadows cast across the fields of love dissipate when light breaks through. It becomes, in essence, a quiet call to persistence, to continue working toward peace and the healing of a wounded planet.
Hertzman, a critically acclaimed Danish jazz singer-songwriter, builds her work on evocative writing and a deeply personal sonic language that draws from multiple traditions. Her collaborations with some of Scandinavia’s and the United States’ most versatile musicians further deepen this dialogue between cultures, giving her music both grounding and reach.
There is, across the album, a degree of repetition that might have felt cumbersome in another context. Here, however, recurrence becomes meaning. Patterns in phrasing and tone subtly mirror a larger truth: that history itself repeats, often through the same errors. Nothing feels accidental; everything is deliberate, fully inhabited. The listener moves from first impression to deeper understanding in a gradual unfolding, each return revealing new layers of intention, until the album begins to feel less like a sequence of songs than a cohesive musical and literary narrative.
What, then, are we encountering? Not simply a vocalist’s album, but an artistic proposition, a work whose full resonance emerges only through attentive listening and reflection. It is not for every listener. A certain literary sensitivity is required to grasp the depth of its musical and poetic ambition. It is a demanding, even risky, choice, one that may be understood differently on either side of the Atlantic. It does not seek consensus. It seeks engagement, and perhaps transformation.
Thierry De Clemensat
Member at Jazz Journalists Association
USA correspondent for Paris-Move and ABS magazine
Editor in chief – Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, March 31st 2026
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To buy this album (April 17, 2026)
Musicians:
Lilly Hertzman, vocals & compositions
Aaron Parks, piano
Thomas Morgan, double bass
Jongkuk Kim, drums
Track Listing
Revelation (4:19)
Heartshaped (4.42)
Fire In The Sky (3.48)
The Calling (4:30)
Toward The Sun (4:47)
In The Sound Of The Night (6.38)
Big Heart (4:31)
Flowers Will Grow Again (5:34)
Total Time: 38:54
Credits:
Music and lyrics by Lilly Hertzman
Produced by Lilly Hertzman
Co-produced by Aaron Parks
Recorded at Clubhouse Recording, Rhinebeck, NY by Gillian Pelkonen and Paul Antonell, April 10 & 11 2023
Mixed by Chris Allen in NY, Aug-Sep 2023
Mastered by Sofia von Hage and Thomas Eberger at Stockholm Mastering, Aug 2025
The album cover is made of two photos: Photo of Lilly taken by Patricia Frazão Pereira and photo of Naomi taken by Lilly.
Album cover artwork and layout by Lilly Hertzman