MARY HALVORSON

— First review of this album —

Originally written for www.jazzmusicarchives.com

I was born eighteen years after the end of WWII and spent my early childhood in a downtown district, bordering with what during the war was a Nazi's established Jewish ghetto, one among the biggest in Europe. In the mid 30s one third of my hometown population was Jewish, at the end of the war there still were a few thousand of them survived by chance. Others were deported to German concentration camps and died there, those few who survived never returned back. Some were killed by Nazis right here, in the outskirts of the town. As a result, only three per cent of pre-war Jewish population stayed in town. Our closest neighbors and friends were Jews.

I can't remember I ever heard music coming from their apartment though. Probably, after the years of holocaust, there were not much place for music in their souls. One of the rare (still black-and-white) photos I still have from my childhood is a green sunny slope on the back of our building where 10 year old neighbor girl Rivka looked after me, a bit chubby blond boy, just started learning walking. And I remember her mum Rachele, she often feasted us flavorful dishes of unusual taste. There were a lot of partially ruined buildings around (the result of Russian bombing at the end of WWII), and plenty of abandoned too. Thousands of Jews that had predominantly inhabited the area, just disappeared, leaving the strange ghost town, which very slowly has been fulfilled with new inhabitants. Some buildings stayed ruined for decades to come, no one knew, where are the people, who lived there before the war, are they alive or not. Probably, everyone knew they will never return back though.

The main city's market square was not too far, just about 15 minutes by walk, I loved to go there with my grandma. On the way we always met people speaking loudly strange language I wasn't able to understand and sometimes there was a disabled old man playing an accordion, very catchy danceable and melancholic tunes, much different from everything I heard elsewhere. It was the Yiddish world of my childhood (I didn't know the world then).

Later our family moved to a brand new apartment on a green new district close to the city's center, and there our closest neighbors and friends were Jews. They were a two-generations family and I still remember the golden plate with their surnames engraved on their apartment's door - "Birshtein & Eidelman". The old lady (I called her "Grandma Sonia") was my grandma's best friend, and our apartments' doors have been never locked - we lived as one big family. It was her who introduced me to tasteful "Tzimmes", from her I learned what "Matzah" is. We started visiting a new market place buying meat and vegetables, and there another old Jewish accordionist played Klezmer for coins. All that has never been something big or important, better to say it was just an ordinary everyday life.

Many years later, one sunny day walking around already rebuilt Old Town, the former WWII-times Jewish ghetto district, I noticed the klezmer trumpet sounding from the small yard. It was a renown Nuyorican Frank London playing klezmer on the land where this music is born. He came to touch the roots of his music and his heritage. I was born and grew up here, listening occasionally to this music, but only found out that it's called "klezmer" in my mature age. We just called it "Jewish music", in a ghost town of Jews with a few Jews alive.

Another, more significant, popularizer of klezmer is with no doubt Nuyorican composer and trumpeter John Zorn. Thanks to him, his own sort of klezmer-jazz became well known and popular around the world. Some years ago he played in my hometown as well, during jazz fest, not on the streets, but anyway hereby klezmer returned back to his home again.

Zorn's "Book of Angels" is a series of klezmer-based compositions, performed by leading New York jazz scene musicians. Mary Halvorson Quartet's "Paimon", is the closing, 32-nd release.

With her regular drummer Tomas Fujiwara, capable bassist Drew Gress and second guitarist Miles Okazaki Halvorson dives into new for her waters. Zorn's composed klezmer-based music is tuneful very emotionally colored, tuneful and melancholic by its origin, not exactly what we know about Halvorson's own music.

The result is quite unusual - "Paimon"'s music is hardly klezmer or jazz. It's more "post-everything" take on Zorn's short well-structurized songs with catchy melodies. Halvorson's usually angular and abstract guitar sound is most successful in interplay with the more flexible (and traditional) guitar of Okazaki. Sentimental tune snippets are presented almost everywhere but not always are right in place. In best, the music flows as quite abstract and quirky take on very conservative material, in other moments there is a feeling that klezmer strict frames are suffocating for Halvorson, she tries to cross the borders, but responsibly returns back to the game's rules.

For me, Halvorson's music here on "Paimon" is a parallel universe klezmer, an interesting music with removed roots. An experiment which doesn't touch a heart. What is possibly very much my personal feeling - this sort of klezmer has nothing too much in common with my childhood's "Yiddish world". But, as with almost any of Halvorson's work, I like to hear her playing.

* 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.

— First review of this album —

* Originally written for www.jazzmusicarchives.com

Mary Halvorson is with no doubt most popular modern advanced female jazz guitarist. With her new band (all members are still part of same "new American avant-garde jazz" cohort) she makes next step refining her usual very individual music.

Band's debut album, "Reverse Blue" opens with few winks of baroque dance but right after switches to rock-jazz distorted guitar's shred. Opener (as well as some other album's songs) is well composed and perfectly works as advanced jazz piece and avant-rock song at the same time.

One can say it's a feminine take on guitar jazz what makes Mary's music so personal. Not sure but it's really better illustrated by her heavier compositions where with no relation to hot-burning drama music in whole stays surprisingly very relaxed and well controlled.

Well-balanced and inventive quartet plays ten originals (half comes solely from Halvorson), all are well calculated and executed. Probably (as on some her other albums) main problem of the music still is that tranquil equilibrium - some injections of adrenaline here and there would save compositions from some appreciable sameness.

"Ego Man", central album's point, trims well-balanced but a bit too repetitive songs' series with Chris Speed's tenor soloing and opens a way for new music sides coming after. Second album's part is more diverse even if some dose of additional adrenaline would be probably desired as well."Really OK" is a beautiful elegant waltz and the closer "Resting On Laurels" sounds as dreamy tasteful miniature

Being a Mary Halvorson's music fan, I am familiar with almost every her album - and always waiting for new to come. Almost every of already released works contains some great moments and some not so great - and this rule is as sturdy as year's seasons change. A small step to being a really great album,"Reverse Blue" is intelligent and accessible listening opening new layers after every another spin.

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.