Zoe Rahman has enjoyed success playing with various artists. She won the Perrier Young Jazz Musician of the Year Award in 1999 and her career has never looked as vibrant as it does today. Rahman is a powerful musician, and her style reflects both her British and Bengali heritage.
After graduating from Oxford, Rahman studied jazz performance at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Her second album Melting Pot won Jazz Album of the Year at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards and her fifth album Kindred Spirits won a Mobo Award for Best Jazz Act in 2012. Rahman’s star continues to glow as brightly as ever whether she is teaching, performing, or composing.
Her new album, titled Colour of Sound, finds Rahman on piano, with Alec Dankworth on double bass, Gene Calderazzo on drums, Idris Rahman on clarinet, tenor and alto saxes, Rowland Sutherland on trumpet and flugelhorn, Byron Wallen on trumpet and Rosie Turton on trombone.
To enter Zoe Rahman’s musical world, you need to understand that in that place, folk music lies easily alongside spiritual, classical and traditional influences. Her style is a meld of jazz with nuances of other related (and unrelated) music, so the overall sound is unique and highly stylized. This blend that Rahman brings to music creates a sonic buffer against the reality of life in some places while reflecting events and emotions in others. She does both so well on this album that it becomes both an esoteric and realistic experience.
On the opening “Dance of Time,” the music flows with some deeply rhythmic piano before the flute of Roland Sutherland joins and he and Rahman work together. The band then ignites to provide a fire under their solo lines. There’s a warmth and coziness to “For Love,” and playful conversational tone with “Little Ones.” The result is a heady mix of joy, love and occasional tranquil moments where everything seems to stop for a moment before the music takes you once again on a headlong, giddy trip.
There is dialogue between the musicians on Colour of Sound, an imitation, repetition, and diversity in between sections which serve to create interest. Every track evolves to create different atmospheres. On “Little Ones,” Zoe Rahman’s playing is exemplary and her crashing low chords contrast sympathetically with the whirling swirling rises of the flute in the middle third.
The styles vary throughout the album. There are funky African rhythms on “Sweet Jasmine” and on “For Love,” the emergent brass adds heaviness and thinking solidity, with the sax oozing out the melody briefly before improvising the heck out of the theme. Rahman frequently demonstrates her penchant for wonderful, deliberately displaced chords at just the right moments.
Dankworth’s bass is glorious on tracks including “For Love” and “Go With the Flow,” while the immersive “Unity” is a chance to lose yourself in the beauty of Rahman’s arrangement, the interaction with the flute as sweet and delicate as a kiss.
Across the tracks, whether as a soloist or providing support to other musicians, Zoe Rahman never loses sight of the color and patination of her music. At times, there are stupendous interactions between the lower registers of bass and piano. The drums deftly slot in to fill any gap with intricate rhythms, and the different voices of the instruments are blended to create a beautiful message.
Solid blocks of sound are created by blending and honing different hues and nuances. Colour of Sound is a colorful album indeed, and aptly named.
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