PRESS TEXT Full
“Like Water”

Olivia Trummer / Like Water / (Release Date: 6.6.2025 / Warner Music Italy)

Like Water is an apt title for singer and pianist Olivia Trummer’s latest release, the first
solo recording in an already distinguished career as a jazz and classical recording artist.
This is an album of rare intimacy, one that feels like more like a single, seamless
performance than a recording session: spontaneous in feel, warmly emotive
in delivery. Trummer is virtuosic as both singer and player, with a gift for novel
arrangements, executed in an elegantly understated fashion. Indeed, like water itself,
this set flows naturally, and often unexpectedly, from a classical prelude to a
deconstructed jazz standard to original compositions, sung in English, German and
Italian.

Though the spotlight here belongs to Trummer, Like Water is the result of a unique
collaboration, notable for the producer behind the board as well as the gifted artist in
front of the mic. Like Water was produced by Russ Titelman, a storied figure in the world
of record-making, whose career extends from session work in the sixties with Phil
Spector and the Beach Boys, among many others, to helming some of the greatest pop
and rock recordings of the last century, from such artists as Rickie Lee Jones, Randy
Newman, Steve Winwood, Chaka Kahn, George Harrison and Eric Clapton. With his
finely tuned ear, the New York City-based Titelman remains, in spirit, an intrepid A&R
guy, listening for new talent in the clubs and online, and reaching out directly to artists
when he gets excited about someone he hears. After coming across a video of
Trummer on YouTube Titelman felt compelled to contact her.

„It was Olivia with her trio playing a song that she wrote called "Piece of Love" and it sounded kind of like a pop song, except it's nothing like anybody else's pop songs“, he remembers. „Then she took a solo and sang along with it, like scatting along with this solo just like George Benson, only on the piano. I thought, where did she come from and who is she and why doesn’t everybody know her?“
Watching that video let to an email, which led to a call and, finally, to the exchange of music files. The creative chemistry, Trummer recalls, was instantaneous.”

Trummer followed her instincts and decided to continue this dialogue with Titelman in
person: „I ended up booking a flight ticket to New York. The day after I arrived was Russ’s
80th birthday. He invited me to dinner with his close friends, and they all already knew
me and my music. The table was filled with inspiring people; it was a wonderful
introduction. The following week showed me what it meant to have a producer. I’d never
worked with one before.“

She had lived in New York City off and on in prior years, often splitting her time between
there and Berlin, where she currently resides. Trummer returned to the city a month
after that first fateful meeting to join Titelman at GB’s Juke Joint studio in Long Island
City, where the pair would record 19 tracks together. During that initial visit, Trummer
and Titelman had spent time listening to music together, come up with a wish list of
songs, and brainstormed about how to approach the pieces they envisioned recording.
So, when they arrived at GB’s, they had a repertoire in mind and a shared sensibility.
Jazz standards would be central to the project, but the approach to this songbook would
be very much Trummer’s own, one that was both enchanting and idiosyncratic. Among
their choices were

„I’m Glad There Is You“, „I’m Old Fashioned“; and „My Baby Just Cares For Me“. As Trummer explains, „I like the tradition of these songs.
They have been recorded many times not by chance, but because they resonate across generations. They carry a truth that remains current.
I love good melodies, beautiful harmonies, and the compact, clear form from which you can also move
effectively and bathe the music in a new light.“

And that is just what Trummer does. She doesn’t so much swing as glide through her
performances, letting familiar melodies unfold in fresh and surprising ways, an approach
that rewards attentive listening as one slowly discovers – and then savors -- where she
is taking these tunes. More contemporary R’B compositions like Stevie Wonder’s “You
are the Sunshine” and Brenda Russell’s “Get There” are transformed into sensual
ruminations on romance and longing, appreciation for a lover who’s in front of you,
anticipation for the one on his way. Trummer subtly but brilliantly acknowledges her
grounding in classical music with some unique interpolations:

Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” morphs into “Watching The Moon“; while „I’m Old-Fashioned“ is framed by a Bach prelude, which in a way underscores the message of the song. A rendition of the venerable spiritual “Swing Low” is especially haunting. The melody floats over the
harmonies of Beethoven’s “Op. 109 Sonata”, which Olivia had learned to play and love as a young piano student.

Perhaps the most compelling example of Trummer’s unique interpretative skills is her
heartbreakingly stark rendition of “Somewhere” from West Side Story, which closes the
album. Titelman had invited Jamie Bernstein, Leonard Bernstein’s daughter, to the
session and she became a mentor/cheerleader to Trummer as the singer tried to perfect
her performance. Recalls Trummer, „My voice felt a bit tired after two intensive days in
the studio, so I wasn't satisfied with the first takes of the song. Jamie then said she liked
them because the song is ultimately about exhaustion—about reaching out for a better
world with all your remaining hope. That inspired me. I decided to do one last take.
When I returned to the mixing room afterward, everyone had tears in their eyes.
I knew: This was the take.“

Though Trummer choses to write her songs mainly in English, she has often written and performed songs in German. On Like Water, she also sings in Italian for the first time. Reminiscent of her years spent in Italy, inhaling the Italian culture and language, she decided to include „Tu, io e Domani“, written by the Neapolitan singer-songwriter Joe Barbieri during the pandemic. It’s a song about the forced separations of the pandemic and the hope for a romantic reunion.
Her original compositions reflect a growing awareness of transience: The German-language „Wie die Zeit Vergeht (How Time Is Passing By)” builds on this, encouraging us to perceive the flow of time not as a threat but as an all- connecting, eternal current. „Strange Day“ plays with the idea of a world without tomorrow. Trummer explains, „While it sounds apocalyptic on the one hand, it is also intended as an invitation to arrive in the present and reflect on what is truly valuable.“
Finally, the album features the highly personal and devotional song „Like Water“ which
Trummer composed in the weeks before her wedding in 2024. Melodically and
harmonically complex, the piece ultimately became the title track, as the name seemed
to perfectly describe the idea of this solo album.

Like Water is, in its own way, a new beginning and at the same time a continuation, since Trummer was already acclaimed in Europe as jazz pianist, singer and bandleader. It’s also the document of a serendipitous relationship between artist and producer,
at a studio where inspiration flowed….like water.