Volume 26 Issue 8 - July and August 2021

into something darkly dramatic.
Allgood’s trio – guitarist Mike Allemana,
bassist Dennis Carroll and drummer George
Fludas – is completely attuned to her vision
and artistry. The performances of each of the
musicians melt eloquently into the vocalist’s
highly expressive melodic stories. Melodies
are intimately woven into filigreed lines from
Allemana’s guitar, echoed in the rhythmic
musicality of Carroll’s bass and Fludas’
drums. The music soars throughout, ending
in Passing Glance, a powerful climax to this
memorable album.
Raul da Gama
Aliens & Wizards
Spike Wilner Trio
Cellar Music CM120120
(cellarlive.com/collections/all)
! Throughout
this pandemic,
Spike Wilner has
championed live
performances at
Smalls Jazz Club
and Mezzrow, the
two NYC venues he
has singlehandedly
helmed. On his trio recording Aliens &
Wizards, Wilner slides behind the piano and
into the spotlight, showcasing his prodigious
pianism with two empathetic bandmates:
bassist Tyler Mitchell and drummer Anthony
Pinciotti. This release also debuts a significant
new partnership between Wilner – through
his SmallsLIVE Foundation – and the Cellar
Music Group, curated by the Vancouver-based
impresario, saxophonist and dyed-in-thewool
jazz fan Cory Weeds.
Aliens & Wizards comprises nine works
featuring Wilner at his best, teasing out
melodic and harmonic lines that are
poignant, urbane and stylishly introspective.
His six original works are resolutely headdriven,
delivered with characteristic warmth
and personality. Not for Wilner an empty
display of pyrotechnics or sentimental indulgence:
as we hear on Adagio and Aliens &
Wizards, the music is sculpted with fluid
architectural acuity.
In the latter piece Wilner uses moody chord
changes and melodic acceleration to build
a monumental abstract structure, unveiling
seemingly supernatural themes and characters,
and connecting the rhapsodic opening
with a grandiose conclusion. This is followed
by the indigo blue Prayer for Peace, expertly
crafted and eloquently performed by the
trio. The program ends in the wonderful
rhythmic rush and tumble of Trick Baby.
This album highlights Wilner’s captivating
pianism against the rumbling backdrop of
Mitchell’s bass and the percussive colours of
Pinciotti’s drums.
Raul da Gama
Saskatchewan Suite
Saskatchewan All Star Big Band
Chronograph Records CR-094
(chronographrecords.com/artists/
saskatchewan-all-star-big-band)
! The darkly
passionate sound
of creation gives
rise to long-limbed
rhythmic excitement
that builds,
one melodic and
one harmonic variation
at a time into
this homage to Saskatchewan. Fred Stride’s
exquisitely visual, ever-swinging eight-part
narrative – the Saskatchewan Suite – is one
of the best long works to be put down on
record in a long time. Significantly, almost
all the band members are homegrown
Saskatchewanians.
The symphonic music is powerfully and
lovingly delivered by musicians who bring a
deeply interiorized reading of Stride’s homage
to a Canadian prairie province in a composition
that is astutely and idiomatically driven
by improvisation. The atmospheric opening
movement describes seemingly endless vistas
and melts into a series of big-boned movements
that depict the fascinating character
and history of Saskatchewan. What could
have been dry music because of the density
of its subject is lifted off the page with the
passionate advocacy of this Saskatchewan All
Star Big Band, which – in soli and ensemble
passagework – brings uncommon tonal
refinement to this epic piece.
Beautifully executed contrapuntal writing
weaves in and out of free-flowing sections.
Especially noteworthy is Thank You, Mr.
Douglas, a tribute to the iconic premier of the
province, Tommy Douglas, father of Canada’s
universal healthcare system. Tempi, ensemble
and balance – all seem effortlessly and intuitively
right as this group of some of the most
celebrated Canadian musicians parley with
extraordinary eloquence and power building
up to the suite’s dénouement, so appropriately
entitled Saskatchejazz.
Raul da Gama
Morning/mourning
Jessica Ackerley
Cacophonous Revival Recordings CRR-009
(jessicaackerleyguitar.tumblr.com)
! Though it’s no
exchange that one
might choose, the
COVID-19 lockdown
has often
replaced the social
and convivial
elements of music
with the depth
of solitary reflection. A series of remarkable
solo performances has been the result,
and Alberta-born, Honolulu-based guitarist
Jessica Ackerley’s contribution, recorded
during self-isolation in a friend’s New York
apartment in the final days of 2020 and the
first of 2021, is among them.
Her music straddles free jazz and free
improvisation, and there’s a special power
afoot here – part expressive determination,
part introspection – that the intimate
recording captures: the textures of fingers,
strings and guitar in close proximity.
Ackerley’s roots in jazz guitar run deep,
evident in the precision and imagination of
her plectrum technique. It’s especially noteworthy
in a set inspired in part by the deaths
of her teachers Vic Juris and Bobby Cairns.
That accelerated picking would mean
nothing if it weren’t intimately connected
with Ackerley’s quality of thought. As Inner
Automation develops, she seems to be dialtwirling
in space: contrasting and discontinuous
figures leap from the fingerboard,
colliding, then exploding into auditory fireworks.
Much Gratitude to You, for You takes
the same approach to more traditional techniques
with its rapidly muted gestures
and occasional hanging chords suddenly
broken up with the emotional drama of
rasgueado strums, derived from flamenco.
The concluding Morning, another contrast,
matches folk reverie with strangely dissonant,
glassy harmonics.
Ackerley makes music of significant depth.
It’s music that insists on being heard.
Stuart Broomer
L’ABÎME
L’abîme
Multiple Chord Music (labime.ca)
! From French,
L’abîme translates
to “the abyss.”
That fact, combined
with the equal
parts striking
and confounding
cover art (courtesy
of the design
savvy of Rosie Landes), appears to scream
“concept album.” I can neither confirm nor
deny whether that is the intent of the artist,
but the music possesses the same cinematic
stage-play pomp of Carla Bley’s early
1970s music. Much like Bley, the members
of L’abîme find themselves all over the place,
in the best way possible. Whether it’s the
progressive faultlessness of the title track, the
nocturnal balladry of L’étang au crépuscule,
the improvisational masterclass of Perdu dans
les bois, or all of the above over the course
of the show-stopping Le Culte suite, L’abîme
manages to fearlessly explore avenues while
never allowing these risks to compromise
its sound.
Jonathan Turgeon has mastered his craft.
His compositions are unlike anything I’ve
ever heard prior to stumbling across his
work. They are dumbfoundingly complex
mosaics of various miniscule rhythms and
50 | July and August 2021 thewholenote.com