Linda May Han Oh is one hell of a bass player, and accordingly, one of the most in-demand ones. Everyone knows that. What might be less known is that Oh is much more than that, and her latest excursion as a leader, The Glass Hours, does everything to burnish her reputation as a complete artist.
It’s not as if the Australian-bred virtuoso hadn’t been signaling her other strengths all along. Oh’s prior project Aventurine was her foray into chamber jazz, supplementing a small jazz combo with a string quartet and a vocal choir and carrying out her meticulously assembled scores. That was pretty ambitious, but in returning to the small ensemble for The Glass Hours, Oh is not reigning herself in at all. The idea of using wordless vocals to help render the melody carries over, but this time not with a bank of vocalists but primarily with just Sara Serpa. Joining Oh and Serpa this go around are Mark Turner (saxophone), Fabian Almazan (piano + electronics) and Obed Calvaire (drums).
Moreover, Oh continues to write elaborate charts that are challenging but often exhilarating, requiring top-level musicianship to carry out convincingly, and she put together the band to do just that. The opener “Circles,” for example, is a perky, inventive piece of modern jazz, taking the song on a symphonic merry-go-round and presenting a gauntlet for Almazan, who makes the complex progression pop with vitality.
“Antiquity” slows it down but the way all the parts intricately fit together not only remains but becomes clearer, followed by a narration about societal tendencies to settle into a mind-numbing nostalgic state, avoiding the real world of the here and now. That brings up the unifying theme that Oh has chosen for this set of songs: Through music and sometimes words, Oh expresses her ruminations on the fragility of time and coping in a world full of crisis and challenges.
The lyric-less vocals of Serpa accentuate Oh’s luminous compositions making it easier to connect to them, much as this device helped the bassist’s recent boss Pat Metheny within the context of the Pat Metheny Group. Many times, though, Oh takes it to the next level. Vocals even take a front seat for “Jus Ad Bellum,” most interestingly in the layering going on during the second half of the song. Serpa shares a lead role with Turner for “Chimera,” acting as a de facto second horn instrument. “The Imperative” is full of lively, advanced bop lines accentuated by Serpa singing along to them. Oh, by the way, perfectly negotiates those tricky changes with her double bass solo where mere mortals might stumble and fall flat on their faces attempting that.
The bass parts merit special attention on every track, but it especially drives the aforementioned “Chimera,” as Oh weaves it in, out and all around the ever-evolving melody until she suddenly bows out to let Almazan and Calvaire ratchet up the tension. Oh plays electric bass for “The Glass Hours,” an episodic piece that takes the listener on a ride through changing sonic topography held coherent by Oh’s nimble bass and modulated by Almazan’s insistent piano.
Some of Oh’s flair is found in how she fits together the parts, changing the roles of the players even within songs. Two complementing harmonic lines frame “Phosphorus”: darting, zig-zag lines played out by Oh and Almazan alongside extended notes rendered by Turner and Serpa. “Hatchling” ends the fare in a sanguine mood, with Serpa, Turner and Almazan all stretching out beyond the pattern held in place by Oh’s electric bass, this is, when Serpa is not in unison with Oh on the upbeat theme.
When first encountering Linda May Han Oh with her 2009 debut Entry, I thought of her as a fully-formed artist who can compose, arrange and lead as well as masterfully play bass. Since then, she has gained a well-deserved reputation as a top-drawer sidewoman but albums like The Glass Hours demand that she be viewed as the complete musician that she’s been all along.
The Glass Hours goes on sale June 2, 2023 from Linda May Han Oh’s Biophilia Records imprint and can be acquired via Bandcamp.
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