Jazz and Improvised

Portrait Landscape
Jeanette Lambert; Various Artists
Independent (jeannettelambert.bandcamp.com/album/portrait-landscape-2)

The liner notes say “my biggest fans are visual artists,” and that makes perfect sense. Lambert is a painter with words, every quiver of her voice, and these incredible suites of endlessly rewarding concepts and dazzling stylistic convergences, illustrate this. Everything from the phrasing to the melodies feel like they’re conversational, existing almost independently from their surroundings and yet also such an integral piece of the landscape.

Frankly, one might think their computer is glitching, they accidentally opened another tab, or they’re hallucinating by the time the programmed drums (and the spoken word of Lambert’s young son beamer!) come in on Away from the Wildfire, but Lambert is expertly striking that delicate balance between discordance and harmony, in a way where the listener knows deep down that the image fits together, even if they have not adjusted their gaze quite yet. This dream-like, hyper specific balance feels like something entirely unique to Lambert’s music, and yet it permeates this entire album. There are lyrical gems that will give you pause, especially out of context, (“air-conditioner looming like a benevolent robot” is a wildly hilarious bar that is also incredibly evocative). If you follow the vignettes Lambert sketches, every breath, emphasized syllable and illustration feels incredibly meaningful. Each room feels inviting and lively, the shifting perspectives colouring in all the lines around us. The instrumentation has a simultaneous lushness and intimacy to it, allowing for gaps unfilled while letting every emotion hit like a truck.

Laila Biali – Wintersongs
Laila Biali; Jane Bunnett; Venuti String Quartet; chamber orchestra
Independent (lailabiali.bigcartel.com/product/wintersongs)

Just in time for you-know-what, Laila Biali has released Wintersongs, a gorgeous, contemplative ode to Canada’s downtrodden season. Born out of a retreat at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity that the talented singer, piano player and songwriter went on in November 2021, the album is very much a product of its environment with most of the songs being studies of snow and wind and pine trees.

Resplendent with strings courtesy of the Venuti String Quartet and a 20-piece chamber orchestra led by Rob Mathes (Sting, Bruce Springsteen) and with Biali’s warm, pure vocals floating over top, the reverie is real.  

There are a few heart-starting moments to snap us out of our trance, though, as Keep on Moving, with a guest choir, amps things up midway through the album, before returning us to our winter wonderland. A standout track for me is Winter Waltz, a gently lilting instrumental with an Argentinean vibe, thanks to Drew Jureka’s bandoneon work. We also get a taste of Christmas as the album closes out with a wonderful chamber-jazz instrumental take on Jesus, He is Born a.k.a The Huron Carol featuring the great Kevin Turcotte on trumpet. 

With this lovely album for company, even diehard winter-haters might learn to embrace the season.

Colin Fisher – Suns of the Heart
Colin Fisher
We Are Busy Bodies (colinalexanderfisher.bandcamp.com/album/suns-of-the-heart)

Enchanting. Mesmerizing. Hypnagogic. Enveloping. Warm. Stunning. Of course, stunning is what happens when the finished product we are left with is itself a love letter to the artistic process that birthed it. The facts (from Bandcamp): multi-instrumentalist Colin Fisher and engineer David Psutka went into the studio, Fisher did live improvising, looping, layering and sampling, they bounced wonderful ideas off each other and this is the result. That is all I need, because despite many of these sounds being absolutely unlike anything else that has entered my ears, I oddly do not desire to know where they came from or how they were created. That they are here, that one person generated them live and that they were ultimately the result of a partnership in their current form is a gratifying enough answer in itself. 

This music has so much allure to it, so much intricacy, so much to pull from, that the limits of descriptive language immediately make themselves known. One could try – one could talk about the gut-wrenching distorted guitar melodies on Deus Absconditus sounding like the broken broadcast transmission of stomach tissue being torn apart, pitched to the melody of an uncannily familiar lullaby that has never been played before. The most warped moments sound like angels, the click-clacking of the keys on Fisher’s horn sound like heartbeats, everything feels like it’s being held up by the most fragile material, yet everything will forever remain suspended in air.

Breaking Stretch
Patricia Brennan Septet
Pyroclastic Records PR35 (pyroclasticrecords.com/release/breaking-stretch)

Having demonstrated her skills in solo and quartet settings, Mexican-American vibraphonist/marimba player Patricia Brennan ups her game further by adding a horn section and electronics to her highly rhythmic program. The voltage boost is used sparingly, mostly to extend the brassiness of Adam O’Farrill’s trumpet leads and add oscillating whizzes to the mallet instruments. However, layering trumpet and saxophonists Jon Irabagon and Mark Shim’s reed riffs broaden the foundation of Brennan’s compositions further, defined by the billowing crunch of Kim Cass’ bass, Marcus Gilmore’s drums and Mauricio Herrera’s percussion.

Unlike a standard Latin-Jazz romp, refined writing and arrangement means that, for instance, on the title tune an emotional tenor saxophone break surges into multiphonics while doubled with metal bar pops that eventually dominate the sound field on top of unrelentless idiophone smacks. Or on Five Suns, O’Farrill’s mariachi-like blasts evoke similar cries from Irabagon’s alto sax, both balancing on wave form squeezes and unvarying hand percussion.

Earendel, the final track, wraps up the session with slackening horn bites and slurs which put finer points on the initial sympathetic electro-acoustic double bass and vibes harmonies. This too pinpoints the program’s dexterity, since, especially when she resonates woody marimba echoes, Brennan, and to a lesser extent Cass’ string solos, evoke relaxed sequences which frame in bolder relief more frenetic motifs. 

Without making her nine compositions too dainty or too dissident, the expanded band helps stretch Brennan’s musical approach in a sophisticated fashion.