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To supplement to our summer issue, here are a few record reviews from artists touring Canada this season. On the one hand, one could say that the group Bellbird, singer Sarah Jerrom and saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin are birds of a feather; on the other, composer and bandleader Darcy James Argue offers what certainly ought to be his magnum opus; finally, saxophonist journeyman George Coleman is caught in full flight for a set that measures up to many a classic live album of yesteryear.
Root in Tandem Bellbird — Self-released, 2023.
The bellbird (or Procnias) is known as the world’s loudest bird. One could say naming a jazz band after such a bird isn’t very promising, but somehow the name fits this Montreal-based quartet very well. Their debut album, Root in Tandem, was released in August 2023. Composed of saxophonists Allison Burik (alto and bass clarinet) and Claire Devlin (tenor), plus double bassist Eli Davidovici and drummer Mili Hong, the group seems to function as a collective, the four members splitting writing duties evenly here: 8 tracks, two by each musician. Their group sound depends very much on the interaction between the two sax players, with themes often based on subtly contrapuntal melodic lines supported by a solid and inventive rhythmic team, the whole effect reminiscent of the early-2000s bands led by Dave Holland. On the other hand, one could suspect Devlin of having devised the band’s name, as her two offerings here (Manakin and Pigeons & Disco) seem to reflect a growing interest in ornithology (not only of the Charlie Parker kind…).
Magpie Sarah Jerrom — TPR Records TPR-0019-02, 2024.
While aviary themes infuse Bellbird’s music, they are central to the work of Toronto singer Sarah Jerrom for her recent double album Magpie, released last April. The eight-part Magpie Suite originated while the singer was in residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in 2018. Researching the behavior of Corvidae (a bird family famous for its intelligence), Jerrom also used vernacular sources (the nursery rhyme One for Sorrow) to blend into the form of a folk fairy tale to explore «themes of feminism, infertility, grief, hope and love». Calling upon a 17-piece instrumental ensemble (including three classically trained musicians, an oboe player, a flautist and a French horn player), and adding to her own voice three additional singers, Jerrom had a wide sound palette at her disposal for this project, reinforced by a few distinguished soloists, among them saxophonists Mike Murley and Kirk MacDonald, trumpeter Kevin Turcotte (who evokes Kenny Wheeler on Part II: For Joy) and pianist Nancy Walker.
Phoenix Lakecia Benjamin — Whirlwind Recordings WR4797, 2023.
While the bellbird and the magpie are very real birds, the phoenix is of course a mythical one – the bird that rises from its own ashes, and for sax player Lakecia Benjamin, who suffered serious injuries following a car accident in September 2021, her album thus named is indeed a sort of new birth, but also a celebration of those (mostly) women who had an influence on her. The album opens on the sound of a police siren, followed by an excerpt from a speech by the great African American and feminist activist Angela Davis. Later, the voices of poet Sonia Sanchez and sax master Wayne Shorter are also heard, as is Dianne Reeves’. Elsewhere, the guests are keyboardists Patrice Rushen and Georgia Anne Muldrow, or trumpeter Wallace Roney Jr. (son of the late Roney Sr. and Geri Allen). Produced by Terri Lyne Carrington, who does remarkable work promoting women jazz composers and performers, the album could easily have suffered from the excess of guest talent that sometimes burden projects of that kind, but it is not the case here, thanks to the presence and the strong personality of Benjamin’s playing. Here, she is indeed a bit like the phoenix, born into flames. We will have to follow where she goes next…
Dynamic Maximum Tension Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society — Nonesuch 075597903508, 2023.
In the past two decades, Vancouver-born Darcy James Argue has emerged as one of the essential voices in modern big band writing with his Secret Society. First established in 2005, the band has released four albums since 2009, each nominated for a Grammy. With this fourth opus, released in September 2023, Argue offers his most ambitious project to date. Like Ken Vandermark in a very different vein, Argue likes to make almost each one of his pieces a dedication to a creative spirit that inspired him: here we find such diverse dedicatees as Levon Helm, Alan Turing and Mae West! Musically, however, his language is rather more cohesive, as he consciously chooses to follow in the footsteps of those great renovators of the big band since the 1960s: Gil Evans, Bob Brookmeyer (Argue’s former mentor and the dedicatee of Wingèd Beasts), Thad Jones, Toshiko Akiyoshi and Maria Schneider. On Ferromagnetic (written in anger, as the booklet informs us, in response to the Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad), the composer mixes rich orchestral textures and a binary rhythm – the rock-infused beat reinforced by the use of an electric piano and by a trumpet solo where Matt Holman uses subtle electronics to modify his sound. Another evocation of the atrocities of war, Your Enemies Are Asleep uses in its Gil Evans-like statement an old Ukrainian song as its theme in solidarity with those victims of the Russian aggression; the piece also features a harrowing solo by Ingrid Jensen. On Single-Cell Jitterbug, Argue imagines utopian architect Buckminster Fuller dancing to Cab Calloway’s band! On the other hand, Fuller is also the dedicatee of the album opener, Dymaxion; it should be noted that Argue himself has often posed in front of the famous Fuller geodesic dome on Saint Helen’s Island… However, it is the great Duke Ellington that provides the inspiration for the album’s tour de force: inspired by the form of Ellington’s famous Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue, Tensile Curves is a massive 34-minute work that goes from a quote from Ellington’s opening fanfare to an unexpected solo section for Sara Caswell’s “Hardanger d’amore” (a violin with sympathetic strings). After this pièce de resistance, the album ends on a lighter note with Mae West: Advice, a fantasy on the character of the famous 30s actress sung by Cécile McLorin Salvant.
Live at Smalls Jazz Club George Coleman — Cellar Music CMSLF006, 2023.
For some astute jazz fans, tenorman George Coleman’s one-year tenure in the early sixties Miles Davis quintet was more of a curse than a blessing. In 1964, he made way for Wayne Shorter, hastening the rise of the trumpeter’s second great quintet. Yet, Coleman had made a name for himself in the decade previous as a member of Max Roach’s group, one with ill-fated trumpeter Booker Little. Ten years later, the saxman was a force to reckon with, first in tandem with another Memphis native, pianist Harold Mabern, then with drummer extraordinaire Elvin Jones, By the mid-1970s he was a charter member of the quartet Eastern Rebellion lead by pianist Cedar Walton. Some 20 years later, he became one the rare hornmen to play with the late piano great Ahmad Jamal. At 89, Coleman is one of the last of his generation still standing, and sharp as a tack, too. Case in point is this album, the latest of over a dozen recordings under his own name. Performing before an enthusiastic audience at Small’s Jazz Club in New York, one of that city’s sure havens for mainstream jazz, Coleman charges through an hour-plus set divided into eight mid-length tracks. Holding fort behind him is a trio of dependable foils lead by pianist Spike Willner with double bassist Peter Washington and drummer Joe Farnsworth not missing a beat. In his liner notes, the latter states that Coleman is playing better than ever. And when you hear that tenor titan dust off old jazz warhorses like Four and My Funny Valentine (as well as an inevitable blues feature) we can only concur with that statement. And for those who yearn to experience that almost lost art of the jazz club set, this offering is pretty much second to none.
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