Rubber Soul Quartet - Taxman

The Beatles are the best-selling music act of all time, and many of their hits have been covered many times before by jazz musicians - so why bother rearranging and recording these songs again? The answer is simple; like the classic songs of Cole Porter, George & Ira Gershwin, Rodgers & Hart, Harld Arlen, and Irving Berlin, Beatles's songs and melodies are timeless and lend themselves perfectly to jazz improvistion and repeated reinterpretation.

"We love the melodies, we have an eclectic and playful approach to music, we like more than jazz, and we constantly find new ways to interpret this great material. This time we wanted to explore more of the soul-funk side of The Beatles. The starting point was our rediscovery of George Harrison's funky groove and bittersweet lyrics in the song 'Taxman' from the masterpiece Revolver."

Rubber Soul Quartet invited our friend, the versatile soul-funk-blues vocalist Stina Stenerud, to sing on eight tracks. We also introduced the electric Fender Jazz Bass, the Fender Rhodes and the baritone saxophone to add some new colours to our musical playground. This recording - made in Halden, Norway, during four cold winter days, completes a musical trilogy. As with our two previous albums, 'Blackbird' and 'Something', both mainly instrumental, the goal is not to copy, but to improvise, swing and have fun; to disassemble the musical building blocks - and put them back together again. Hope you enjoy the puzzle!" - Torstein Ellingsen