Christine Jensen Jazz Orchestra

Released in 2013

DownBeat Five-Star Review

YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=XbEOhiU7ZkA&list=OLAK5uy_nidMsoE_tFzKoZ5EwBKdsap1N7v5abyPo

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/2CSjcKlPi94TdHNor6s8np?si=o7Jiv085TOKK3fPrmTw4SQ

About:

Canadian jazz saxophonist Christine Jensen has begun using a full “jazz orchestra” of up to 18 players, opening new horizons for her. NPR’s Arun Rath speaks with Jensen about her new album, Habitat:

saxophonist, a composer, leader of a jazz group and more recently, the conductor of an 18-piece jazz orchestra.

RATH: That requires yet another personality – a businesswoman to make a generally unprofitable venture work.

CHRISTINE JENSEN: It’s not like the pop industry, where it’s an investment that’s going to most likely pay off. It is really hard to get it to the public unless you’re touring all the time and obviously, with a big band, that’s really hard.

RATH: Christine Jensen’s latest album is called “Habitat.” This piece, “Intersection,” is the first time she’d ever attempted to write specifically for a big band.

JENSEN: At the time, I was playing a lot with sextets and quintets, and everyone said oh, that piece is so nice. You should arrange it for a big band. And I’m like, oh, my God, that’s so much work. Eighteen people – that’s a lot of people to think about.

Gradually, once I got comfortable doing a few things, I challenged myself to write something that creates a journey, and I was basically trying to find a concept where I was featuring many different soloists and different corners of the piece. So you hear a bit of small group to large group to solo piano. There’s a lot of different textures in this piece.

RATH: You’re a great saxophone player, but this is not the typical jazz big band that you think of where, you know, the person is fronting and playing their own horn. You actually, when I’ve seen you, most of your – times, your hands are too busy conducting to be picking up a horn. Is there something about this music? Is it too difficult to conduct and play at the same time?

JENSEN: There is definitely a challenge there. It depends, I guess – you know, I think of an album; each piece, to me, is a short story and maybe I’m involved in it as a player, maybe I’m involved in it as a conductor of the music. And that word – conducting – is a very strong word for me.

So I’m in the music as the composer, conductor and sometimes, the player. But I also feel that the large ensemble jazz setting, for me, is also balancing that beautiful, spur-of-a-moment thing that happens in jazz with the soloists and with the rhythm section. And then there’s this ensemble writing. So where I place the soloists or myself is all about finding a fine balance between the two things.

RATH: Well, there’s one track, we get to hear you play soprano sax on. That’s “Sweet Adelphi.” What is it like – I know you’ve talked about the headspace of a composer and the headspace of an improviser being almost distinct. So what’s it like smashing those two together?

JENSEN: Well, that’s, I guess that’s when I get to be in the moment.

JENSEN: “Sweet Adelphi” is also kind of one of the first pieces I wrote for Ingrid and me – my sister; she’s a trumpet player, Ingrid Jensen. And I was sitting – I remember, distinctly remember sitting on the street, which is Adelphi Street in Brooklyn, in Fort Greene. And it was a beautiful spring day, and I just wrote the motive down super fast. And she was in the other room going oh, that’s really pretty. Keep going.

JENSEN: There was a few other pieces on this album where I thought I would be able to play. The first track is called “Tree Lines,” and I originally thought my sister and I would be having this big conversation over this piece but in the end, I really had to conduct more than play, at that point.

RATH: Well, talking about your sister, Ingrid Jensen, for people who are not familiar with jazz, she’s a fantastic trumpet player, has been on the scene for a while. So as you’re working as the architect of this music, how do you deploy Ingrid, like in a tune like “Tree Lines?”

JENSEN: Oh, that’s a good question. “Tree Lines,” I found, was something where I was working on character development a little bit and how you have to balance between the soloist and the ensemble. It’s a tricky thing. I think that’s why some of my songs are a bit too long. (Laughter) But I find – deploying her is a great word. Every take we do I’m just trying to lay out some things for her so she can have this freedom to do what she likes on top of my music.

RATH: Let’s talk about the track “Tumble Down.” That’s about your travels in Haiti. Can you talk about what inspired that piece?

JENSEN: That, I wrote quickly out of the spirit of the moment, of the sadness I felt when I heard about that devastating earthquake.

RATH: This was the earthquake in Haiti in 2010.

JENSEN: Yeah, thank you, 2010. And I’d been there the previous years – a few years back, 2007 and 2008. It was a visit where I felt there was so much hope and so much of a future, in terms of infrastructure, ahead of them. I think I met the most beautiful people in my life from all my travels by going to Port-au-Prince. And then, you know, a few years later, I’m sitting in a residency at the Banff Centre for Fine Arts, and I was trying to write some music. And I just I couldn’t believe this earthquake had hit and kind of wiped out what I thought was some structure that was going to start happening in this place. So that, you know, it’s amazing that there’s a place this close to North America and how Third World it is, when you look at it, and to know that it went deeper into this dark place after an earthquake. But I do know that, you know, after meeting these people, they’re so resilient and so positive and so beautiful that that’s sort of the journey of that piece, for me.

Track Listing:

1. Treelines 11:39

2. Tumbledown 10:28

3. Blue Yonder 7:53

4. Nishiyuu 14:57

5. Intersection 11:32

6. Sweet Adelphi 10:24

Personnel:

Christine Jensen: conductor, soprano saxophone (solo on 6)

Donny Kennedy: alto saxophone (solo on 1), soprano saxophone, flute

Erik Hove: alto saxophone (solo on 5), flute

Joel Miller: tenor saxophone (solos on 2, 5), clarinet

Chet Doxas: tenor saxophone (solo on 4), clarinet

Samuel Blais: baritone saxophone (solo on 3), clarinet

David Grott: trombone

Jean-Nicolas Trottier: trombone (solos on 2)

Muhammed Abdul Al-Khabyyr: trombone

Bob Ellis: bass trombone (1, 3-5)

Jean Sébastion Vachon: bass trombone (2, 6)

Dave Martin: tuba, euphonium (1-4)

Joceyln Couture: trumpet

Bill Mahar: trumpet

Dave Mossing: trumpet

Aron Doyle: trumpet

Ingrid Jensen: trumpet (1, 3, 5, 6, solos on 1, 5, 6)

John Roney: piano (solo on 5)

Ken Bibace: electric guitar

Fraser Hollins: upright bass (solo on 5)

Richard Irwin: drums (solos on 3, 5)

Dave Gossage: native flute (4)

Recorded May 2013, at Studio Piccolo, Montréal

Produced by Christine Jensen and Paul Johnston

Review:

Christine Jensen—Montreal-based composer, arranger, conductor and saxophonist—has created something special with Habitat, her second large-ensemble album. The follow-up to 2010’s questing Treelines (which won a Juno Award, Canada’s Grammy, for contemporary jazz album of the year), Habitat is orchestral jazz on par with the textural-lyrical magic of Kenny Wheeler and Maria Schneider—though with an earthy dynamism more akin to Wayne Shorter and a sense of bittersweet melody all Jensen’s own. This album feels of the moment yet timeless; big-band clichés are avoided, but beauty is paramount. There’s a subtle cry to Jensen’s music that gives Habitat emotive resonance. Born in 1970 in British Columbia, Jensen is younger sister to New York-residing trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, who adds liquid tones to the excellent Habitat ensemble. (The sisters also play together in Nordic Connection, a kindred-spirit band with Swedish pianist Maggi Olin.) Tenor sax soloist Chet Doxas imbues “Nishiyuu”—a piece inspired by an epic protest walk by Cree natives in Ottawa— with cries and whispers. Cascading brass choirs beguile the ear in “Tumbledown,” as do Richard Irwin’s dramatic drumming and the pensive wail of tenor saxophonist Joel Miller. The composer’s soprano sax flies like a ribbon in the breeze during closer “Sweet Adelphi.” Habitat feels utterly of a piece, with the improvisations woven from threads of the compositions, the melodies and countermelodies flowing holistically. The recorded sound conveys Jensen’s artful blend of 20-some instruments with warmth and immediacy. The cumulative impact is more than impressive; it’s moving.

Bradley Bambarger (DownBeat)