Radka Toneff

Fairytales (2017 Edition) (CD) Radka Toneff Master edition

The Norwegian jazz vocalist Radka Toneff made her album debut in 1977 and recorded only three albums during her lifetime, which was cut short by her tragic death in 1982. Born on June 25, 1952 in Oslo, she is the daughter of a Norwegian mother and a Bulgarian folksinger and studied at the Oslo Musikkonservatorium from 1971 to 1975. After founding the Radka Toneff Quintet, whose membership included Arlid Andersen (bass), Jon Balke (piano) and Jon Eberson (guitar) among others, she made her album debut in 1977 with "Winter Poem". Highly acclaimed, the album was awarded a Spellemannprise (the Norwegian Grammy) for Vocal Album Of The Year. The follow-up album "It Don't Come Easy" (1979) also featured the Radka Toneff Quintet, while her third album "Fairytales" (1982) was a collaboration with American pianist Steve Dobrogosz. It's the best-selling jazz album in Norway's history and was voted as Norway's best album overall of all time in 2011 among Norwegian musicians. The album's remarkable sound quality quickly awarded it the status of a reference-level recording among audiophiles. Tragically, Toneff died on October 21, 1982 in what was officially declared a suicide, though some have argued that her death was accidental. Over the years that followed, Radka Toneff's stature rose to that of a legend, and "Fairytales", by the perfectly attuned duo of Radka Toneff and Steve Dobrogosz, has served as an inspiration to both musicians and listeners for more than three decades now. The remarkable sound quality of this album, recorded using one of the earliest digital tape recorders, has been recovered and captured using MQA technology. MQA has recreated the sound of the duo's breath-taking original performance for this special master 2017 edition. This fresh, re-mastered version of the album is based on the long lost original 16 bit/50,35 kHz master tape from 1982, and for the first time the album is made available as a Hybrid SACD. The process of upgrading the already superb sound quality of the recording is bringing the listener even closer to the music as it was played and sung at the Grieg Hall in February 1982, when the unique chapter of "Fairytales" was written into Norwegian music history.