DD Jackson: Poetry Project (ddjackson.com)
Who among us did not launch an eccentric project during lockdown? DD Jackson certainly did. When poet George Elliott Clarke popped up in Jackson’s inbox asking him to set one of his texts to music, the award-winning pianist opted to give it a go. Clarke then chucked a dozen more books by various poets into the mail. Jackson composed tunes for his favourites. This is the result.
Poetry Project is also the result of a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. The smell of that funding attracted an enormous cast to the studio – including seven guest singers, a string quartet and the entire Czech National Symphony Orchestra. It’s Jackson’s 14th release as leader or co-leader and features 13 original pieces with lyrics from 11 poets.
Much of the album attempts to paper over the rhythmic cracks between text and tune by adopting a kitschy, Broadway style. But two songs for vocalist Yoon Sun Choi stand out. So, Say I is a less linear composition, with more extended techniques and outsidey stuff. Scat singing, disharmony and dissonance help the track lean into the self-imposed limitations of Jackson’s pandemic project.
Beyond Choi’s two-part showcase, Dean Bowman sings on the record’s most enjoyable moments. He contributes a pair of bluesy rock-funk numbers, with boisterous solos and a playful spirit.
Jackson makes his debut as a singer on this release. He works with the string quartet on The Father’s Dream and with the orchestra on Daedalus’ Lament. His voice is sweet and precise, deserving another outing in the future. But neither track extracts full value from its luxurious instrumentation.
Poetry Project is a polished response to an eccentric pandemic challenge. However, the poetry is not intended as song lyrics – and it shows. Like a pair of lockdown-inspired yoga leggings, there’s something about this album that just doesn’t quite fit.
Christopher Parnis: Everything You Could Be (christopherparnis.com)
With watery eyes scanning the floor and a toecap twisting on the tarmac, Christopher Parnis invites listeners to join him for this debut album – but only if they’re not too busy or anything. It’s a bashful and almost apologetic first release. But that’s what makes it so charming.
The bassist sticks to the tried-and-tested quintet setup for this first-time session. Christian Antonacci carries most of the melodies on trumpet or flugelhorn. With its rockish tone, Matt Greenwood’s electric guitar feels slightly out of place but not unwelcome. Pianist Brian Dickinson and drummer Aaron Blewett are outstanding throughout. The band leader is often hard to spot, playing simple basslines and understated solos. The compositions and arrangements are mostly his work, though.
Parnis got his dad to write one of the tracks, Measured Response. It’s a guitar-led and blues-inflected ballad that gathers emotional force with each slow step. The bassist takes the first solo and stays true to the tune’s tentative overall character.
The final 30 seconds of Measured Response swim around more freely. There are also less tightly composed sections at the end of False Start, Opportunity and DDQ. These are the most intriguing parts of the record but the fade-out slider thwarts them too soon.
By example, we get a glimpse of everything the album could be on Everything You Could Be. Shifting rhythms make the ground unsteady. Dickinson’s melodic solo adds energy until a drop-out passage, where brass and guitar overlap before the track melts away into a 30-second dreamscape.
The compositions on this record move with careful but compelling momentum. While Christopher Parnis takes a backseat for much of this debut, he does more than enough to leave listeners hoping to get to know his music more intimately in the future. The old Downcast-Eyes-and-Twisting-Toecap trick never fails. But the bassist can afford to puff out his chest and speak boldly next time around.
Naomi Moon Siegel: The Glass Sanctuary (Slow and Steady BOR-110)
There are big reasons to feel anxious these days. But everything will be OK. The third release from trombonist Naomi Moon Siegel, for example, is agitated at times. It has mood swings, screaming fits and moments of despair. Nevertheless, her compositions always bring the sun shining through the clouds eventually. A warm and positive album emerges if listeners can hang on for long enough.
Five musicians joined Siegel in the studio to record these nine original tracks. Together, they tell the story of their bandleader’s difficulty when adjusting to life in rural Montana after many years in Seattle. Her trombone is often paired with Ray Larsen’s trumpet. Marina Alberto and Andy Coe are prominent on piano and guitar. Kelsey Mines adds bass, with Christopher Icasiano playing drums.
The album makes an ominous start, with clicky percussion and weird moaning from bowed bass on The Adventures Of Violet & Pilot. Piano arrives with pretty shapes. The volume rises. A brass fanfare bursts through any remaining gloom. Tension rises and then collapses, opening up a stripped-back section for gentle soloing by bass and piano that gives way to a groovy final passage.
A five-track composition called Shatter The Glass Sanctuary Suite makes up around half of the running time, with two interludes connecting three core pieces. The suite starts with disorienting noises and a sense of foreboding, but Siegel slowly permits brighter and more gregarious melodic shapes to flourish. By the final instalment, the band is dizzily waltzing around a Latin-funk funfair.
Naomi Moon Siegel is an engaging storyteller and her narratives on The Glass Sanctuary keep the listener gripped. There are no fairytales here. The music is frequently sinister and unsettled. But it is a record marked by happy endings that offers kind-heartedness and comfort in today’s anxious times.
