Every album is a thesis for Caroline Davis. The saxophonist, vocalist, composer and bandleader undertakes each recording project to deepen her knowledge about things not necessarily about music and turn it into inspiration for music. A year ago we took notice of a quality record she made after studying up on the mechanisms of the human heart. This time, Caroline Davis turns her keen eye toward understanding a small projection on the leading edge of bird wings, an alula, and it’s impact on flight control.
Like all her prior works, you don’t have to be a book nerd to appreciate her music, and that holds true even more than ever with Alula, which might very well be her most ambitious project yet even as it’s also structurally her most spare. That’s because it sprung from a sax-drums partnership formed with Deerhoof co-founder Greg Saunier, who as a drummer resides in a space all his own.
Saunier’s bonafides as a veteran performer, writer and producer in the fringes of both rock and improvised music made him a great fit for the bold new direction Davis wanted to take. Since Davis didn’t want to spread her self out too thin by handling keyboard duties, she turned to another inspired choice to handle that task: Tim Berne’s Snakeoil pianist Matt Mitchell.
Mitchell wasn’t asked to be a pianist here, instead handling synthesizers of the 70s and 80s varieties. That final piece set this trio on a course for exploring music that largely re-thinks the whole idea of rock-jazz fusion, one that’s really a fusion of outer-rock with outer-jazz. And every track surprises in one form or another.
For instance, Caroline Davis’ first instrument heard is her voice, not her sax. On “Alula,” she wordlessly states a melody in tandem with Mitchell’s sax-like synth, but as she switches over to the horn and makes unhinged hay with Mitchell, it’s Saunier’s master class on avant drumming that takes over the song. The album is bookended by an inverted of the first track, making a musical palindrome to symbolize the palindrome in the alula name.
The economy of Saunier’s trap kit is apparent on “Flight,” which suits the exiguous architecture of the song. Mitchell, too, shows off his atypical approach to keyboards, employing an almost-forgotten Prophet synthesizer sound in making a retro-future approximation of a trumpet partner to Davis’ sax. “Wingbeat” begins as a free form blast from Davis and Saunier, settling into a twisted progression with Davis’ sax traced by Mitchell’s synth.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell where the sound of the saxophones ends and the sound of MItchell’s vintage synth begins; “Remiges” merges the two into a holistic, semi-organic/semi-artificial sonority. And just as that fades away, Saunier launches a loopy funk construction and the three get down to business. Mitchell knows how to leverage the sound of the keyboards to make the band sound much bigger than it is at the right moments, and then pull back again to reveal its skeletal foundation.
The absence of bass is really noticeable on “Scapulars,” as Mitchell and Saunier opt for higher timbres, until the former plays organ pedal-type notes on the bridge. From there, it takes the form of something close to straight jazz, only played with a spacey keyboard and avant-rock drums.
The band makes a solemn respite from the brief explosion of “Lift” with “Coverts,” a pretty, sax-led melody subtly accentuated by Saunier’s voice. The pulsing, lively “Vortex Generator” showcases nifty horn work from Davis, who glides right through the progressions as Saunier is improvising right underneath while maintaining time.
Old school synth combined with sax, swirling around exotic pulses should summon a lot of memories of Weather Report but “Landing” is the first time I get that I Sing The Body Electric vibe. It’s a very effective evocation of the little understood but innovative early era of WR.
Caroline Davis has long been consistent in the quality of her work even as she changes gears from album to album. With Alula though, she’s thrust herself into the company of vital artists at the frontier of jazz.
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