January 2023 Capsule Reviews

With the start of a new year, we also start a new feature on this site. These capsule reviews aim to provide very brief reviews – a few hundred words at most – of albums of note which have come out around the month at issue. For this month, only one of these albums – Lakecia Benjamin’s Phoenix (Whirlwind, 2023) – comes out in January proper. The other three – Satoko Fujii’s Hyaku, One Hundred Dreams (Libra, 2022), Patricia Brennan’s More Touch (Pyroclastic, 2022), and Leland Whitty’s Anyhow (Innovative Leisure, 2022)- are holdovers from 2022 which are nevertheless worth remark.

Lakecia Benjamin, Phoenix 

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Benjamin’s immediately preceding work was a star-studded tribute to the couple Coltrane. While reviews of Pursuance heavily emphasized the alto saxophonist’s approach to the works of John, it was her relationship to Alice’s music that provided a base for the entire album. Phoenix builds upon Benjamin’s connections to the contributions of her female elders by underscoring their works on the transmutability of artistic forms. Poet Sonia Sanchez blurs the lines between the blues and haiku on “A Haiku Song” and “Blast.” Patrice Rushen’s genre-leaping keyboard stylings provide vitality to “Jubilation.” The soulful vocals of Dianne Reeves and the emboldened spoken words of Angela Davis provide further depths to their respective tracks. The guest artists are fitting for an album by an artist who continues to impress with her own disregard for boundaries between jazz, R&B, pop, and hip hop. Where Pursuance highlighted Benjamin’s ability to show homage to the masters, Phoenix showcases her continued prowess as a composer, forging her own path with guidance from the masters.

Satoko Fujii, Hyaku, One Hundred Dreams

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Fujii’s hundred – more if you could Bandcamp only releases- album discography is replete with excellent solo, duo, trio, and large ensemble works. Hyaku, the recording commemorating her output officially reaching the triple digits, is among her best. It finds her exploring the thin edge between avant-garde jazz and contemporary classical music with an impressive team of collaborators. Many of Fujii’s bandmates would be familiar to those even passively familiar with this site: Ingrid Laubrock, Sara Schoenbeck, Wadada Leo Smith, Natsuki Tamura, Ikue Mori, Brandon Lopez, Tom Rainey, and Chris Corsano. Fujii puts care into the use of each idiosyncratic artist’s voice by essentially carving the suite’s five parts into an extended series of solos. Adopting this structure allows themes to rise to the top and provide a better context to the work. This is most evident in part one, where the duality of nature as simultaneously a peaceful and violent force is brought to the fore by Mori’s distorted birdcalls and Fujii’s simulations of a babbling brook and a heavy rapid. Schoenbeck’s bassoon further amplifies the mysteriousness of the surroundings. 

Patricia Brennan, More Touch (Pyroclastic, 2022) 

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There are many fine vibraphonists today- Joel Ross, Sasha Berliner, and Chris Dingman, among them. Brennan certainly belongs in their company as she continues to forge her own path on the instrument. If one listens closely enough to the original compositions on More Touch, one can hear the Mexican folk music from Brennan’s youth. But it’s hardly a retrospective affair. The instrumentation – three percussionists and a bassist- is forward-thinking and unique. Even more so after one considers the bandleader’s affinity for electronic effects, which adds an exotic element to the work. The result is equally familiar and foreign. This is perhaps best experienced on “El Nahualli,” which envisions the rampage of a mythic beast by manipulating a simple and laid-back melody into a frenetic collage of sound. With a practitioner like Brennan, the vibraphone’s mallets are in good hands as the instrument enters its second century. 

Leland Whitty, Anyhow (Innovative Leisure, 2022)

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Although best known for his work as the saxophonist in BadBadNotGood, Whitty is adept at several instruments. On his solo debut, Anyhow, he adds flute, clarinet, guitar, violin, viola, Wurlitzer, and synth to his arsenal. While the project sounds a bit removed from the jazz-hip hop hybrid for which BBNG is known, it, too, takes something from sampling. Looped sounds are the building blocks for sonic environments. The album is cinematic, with each track evocative of a particular mood. The distorted flute refrain on the opener, “Svalbard,” speaks of loneliness, while the closing title track suggests dreamlike tranquility. Throughout, Whitty sets an air that he is doing less with more. He uses sparse instrumentation to reach emotional depths that a highly orchestrated ensemble would struggle to achieve. Though it packs a punch, Anyhow is a short record; hopefully the first of many solo works from Whitty.