Evergreen (Canceled World) (ESP-Disk)
The Delegation
Released October 7, 2016
DownBeat Four-and-a-Half-Star Review
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kVZIYmZX6ScXUWT-6rOu8yAakNR4BEvn0
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/5ZpnJeWL073OZNMMy9H0K0?si=cI4df6apTNGDwPm8uCnpIQ&dl_branch=1
About:
The Delegation is a project of young phenom Gabriel Zucker that mixes jazz, classical, electronica, rock, and more into a new sound that lives up to ESP-Disk’s classic catchphrase, “You never heard such sounds in your life!” This improvising group came together at the 2013 Banff Jazz and Creative Music Workshop and was soon commissioned by the American Composers Forum; the result is the twelve-movement work on this two-disc set, which was premiered at the Jazz Gallery in New York City in 2014 and earned ASCAP’s Morton Gould Young Composers Award.
Track Listing:
1. You’ll Always Know / I’ll Follow You (Resistible I) 04:11
2. Headlight Imprecise (Summaries I) 12:41
3. In The Audience (Disregard I) 09:34
4. Bare (Evergreen I) 06:13
5. Too Resistible / Roof (Resistible II) 06:03
6. were alone / Knowledge Clown (Evergreen II) 16:16
7. The End 03:15
8. Recover (Disregard II) 03:28
9. 3.5 Rotations (Evergreen III) 13:34
10. Growing Old (Evergreen IV) / Flow Like Wine (Canceled I) 08:36
11. Talk In Undertones (Resistible III) 05:49
12. Yellow Paint (Summaries II) / End Of Time (Canceled II) 09:11
Personnel:
Gabriel Zucker: piano, compositions, lyrics, electronics, voice
Adam O’Farrill: trumpet
Eric Trudel: tenor saxophone
Jacob Teichroew: tenor saxophone, clarinet
Bryan Qu: tenor saxophone
Mark Chung: violin
Ron Lawrence: viola
Eric Allen: cello
Artemisz Polonyi: voice
Lorena del Mar: voice
Bam Bam Rodriguez: bass
Gabriel Globus-Hoenich: drums
David Su: additional electronics
Recorded December 5 – 6, 2014, at Brooklyn Record Studio (Brooklyn, NY), by Bryce Goggin – except Movt. IX recorded February 9, 2015 at Sterling Social (Brooklyn, NY), by Paul Loren.
Produced by Gabriel Zucker with Chris Connors
Mixed by Chris Connors with Gabriel Zucker
Mastered by Michael Fossenkemper
Design by Emile Klein
Evergreen (Canceled World) was made possible by a grant from the American Composers Forum with funds provided by the Jerome Foundation.
Review:
Pianist-composer Gabriel Zucker leads a definitively diverse ensemble through an ecologically resonant program of 12 movements. The result is a fascinating form of sonic installation blending wild improvisation, classical strings, disciplined unison passages and untrammeled solo excursions. The titles of the tunes are largely cryptic, the movements not easy to sync with. These notes on “Headlight Imprecise (Summaries 1),” one of the longer tracks, may communicate this startling album’s unique atmosphere: cacophonous and anarchic, collapsing into piano, very urban as in traffic jam and road rage, then collapsing (or is it coalescing?) into string sweep, yet still packing that piano punch. Then the saxes thicken the mix, beginning to hint at a direction, a form emerging out of chaos. The struggle is exciting, if not easy. Midway through, it softens, as if not sure where to go, but slowly, saxophone and violins assert themselves.
Carlo Wolff (DownBeat)
