A Happy Soundtrack To A Walk In The Clouds
My Review Of Guitarist Mary Halvorson's Recent "Cloudward"
Mary Halvorson composed much of Cloudward as the end of the COVID lockdown saw the world emerging from isolation. She said that “the main thing I felt while writing the music was optimism,” and it shows. Cloudward has a happy, dreamlike quality, like the soundtrack to a walk in the clouds.
Halvorson “became fixated” on images in a tarot deck featuring a hand in a cloud giving something to a person. Halvorson said:
“I love that idea of a cloud-hand. There’s also another card, the four of cups, where somebody’s sitting there, and a little cloud shows up with a hand offering the . . . cup.”
I decline to dwell on the doomed exercise of assigning a category to Mary Halvorson’s music. Avant-garde, Free Jazz, Experimental Jazz; all are equally instructive but incomplete. Structurally, Halvorson shares much with Anthony Braxton’s “vibrational affinity dynamics” by treating composed vs. improvised music as a distinction without a difference.
On Cloudward, Halvorson allows the ensemble (Mary Halvorson (guitars), Jacob Garchik (trombone), Nick Dunston (bass), Tomas Fujiwara (drums), Patricia Brennan (vibraphone), Adam O'Farrill (trumpet), and Laurie Anderson (violin on “Incarnadine”) to decide in the moment who offers a solo. She said:
In general, I’ve tried hard not to control what happens with this band, but even more so as time has progressed. All the songs have solo sections, but I rarely dictate who’s supposed to solo where. Leaving that aspect open has been interesting. As the music develops and we go on the road, people end up finding their favorite spots to solo on. As an example, there might be a moment in a particular song where Patricia [Brennan] enjoys soloing, so she will often fill that spot. We end up with everyone almost “claiming” different spots in the songs, which I think is very cool because sometimes I can’t anticipate who would enjoy soloing most in a certain moment.
That individual freedom does nothing to prevent the sextet from performing complex passages in synch, as reflected in the opening track, “The Gate.”
“The Tower” opens with noodling, dissonant guitars leading into a guitar/vibraphone interlude. A staccato figure from the horns follows, and the tune wanders through diverse sonic landscapes; the rhythm section fades in and out before the guitar and vibraphone reprise. Lovely.
Collapsing Mouth features the vibraphones and horns interacting like two similar but distinct conversations at a cool party; Ultramarine feels like listening to a psychedelic mariachi band. Halvorson plays with thick strings and a heavy pick with few effects, producing a “woody” tone which becomes distorted in Desiderata.
Cloudward can be heard as a continuation of Amaryllis and Belladonna (2022) which featured the same personnel and Buffalo music lovers may recall her visit here five years ago at the Art of Jazz series. Her current tour contains no Western New York stops, however, so this wonderful recording is your best chance to experience the work of this important, maturing artist.
I have no doubt the clouds will continue to offer cups of inspiration.