AMARYLLIS

A very good album with emphasis on arrangements, combining horns and vibraphone with the guitar trio, then incorporating a string quartet on the second half. Lots of irony and detachment, sometimes in an impressionistic way. Halvorson's style is resolutely un-flashy, Guitar tone-wise, she spends a lot of attention coordinating two signals, one of which is hooked up to a pitch bender and maybe other effects. This album is similar in texture to Sean Moran's Small Elephant Band but kinder. The whole album is great, but standouts are the title track, a high-energy workout opening with bassist Dunston digging in, supporting running lines with a double-time rhythm in asymmetrical divisions, and an epic trumpet solo by Adam O'Farrill following nice chromatic chord changes. Also "Hoodwink" with modernist string quartet writing with spectral harmonics and a haze of dissonance. Halvorson enters with enchanting guitar arpeggiations, making a sumptuous texture. Halvorson later solos with intriguing pitch bendy effects and it ends with a great composed tag.

* Originally written for www.jazzmusicarchives.com

Once a member of Anthony Braxton Group, guitarist Mary Halvorson today probably is the most renown female jazz guitar player in the world. For nearly two decades she demonstrates her very own playing techniques and aesthetics, releasing innovative successful albums and collaborating with many creative jazz forefront artists.

In her prolific discography, 2022's "Amarylis" is an apogee release. A six-song suite, written by Mary during the pandemic, perfectly illustrates her both strong sides - as a composer and as a virtuosic musician-band leader. Recorded with a capable sextet (incl. vibes player Patricia Brennan and excellent drummer Tomas Fujiwara among others), the album's music sounds like a modern orchestra played soundtrack with rich arrangements and a big sound. Opposite to long- lasting trends of such sort of music being melancholic, nostalgic and over-emotional, Halvorson's work radiates positive energy and demonstrates well-balanced optimism.

Halvorson's music is rooted in free-funk, modern classic music and prog rock, with atmosphere and dynamics one can remember from Charlie Haden's Liberation Orchestra from the late 60s. On three of the album's last songs, The Mivos Quartet come on to support the jazz sextet making the sound even more orchestral and partially chamber.

On many previous Halvorson releases, strong and more interesting compositions were sometimes mixed with less successful and more ordinary songs which often did not allow the whole album to sound perfect. On "Amaryllis", there is not even a single note which is not mandatory or out of place. At last, Mary released the album, demonstrating her talent and potential in full - the apogee.