Forgotten Stories Suite
Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra; Sean Irvine
Chronograph Records CR-118 (winnipegjazzorchestra.bandcamp.com/album/forgotten-stories-suite)
This is, simply put, big band music as a creative medium done justice.
Sean Irvine provides the poetry, lyrics and music for the entire suite, and really achieves something special. There is multi-disciplinary artistry where each arrow in one’s quiver is given its own treatment, its own time of day, its own level of care. This is another kind entirely, one where Irvine completely renders distinctions between these artforms unimportant, or even obsolete, showing that one can indeed be an extension of another.
Music provides colour to these words as organic as the act of breathing. The Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra is more than a mere mouthpiece for one person’s vision too. Quinn Greene’s recitations give the text heft and impact. Karly Epp’s vocals act as a translator from English to the sublime. The dynamism and interplay of the horns act as punctuation, spiritual grammar, and they offer moments that speak for themselves, such as the low brass hit prior to the line “...fear of the unseen” in 2 Brothers.
The rhythm section switches up the groove enough times to make one’s head pirouette. As the suite consists of five distinct yet profoundly interrelated movements, Irvine’s brush strokes trawl and traverse the continuum between macro and micro narrative gestures. At its core, this is music about resilience through trauma, and stands as a towering testament to the healing powers of community. Big band music done justice, because it is about justice.
