Freedom Over Everything (Modern Recordings)
Vince Mendoza
Released July 4, 2021
JazzTimes Top 40 Jazz Albums of 2021
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_l4Mu3CqIX-_alx_UCLnByvzaIRLuGxGk0
Spotify:
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About:
Six time GRAMMY®-Award winner, and 34-time nominee, Vince Mendoza is considered the foremost arranger of his generation, working with legends such as Björk, Elvis Costello, Sting, and Joni Mitchell. In a new star-studded release, Mendoza returns to his roots as a composer and conductor with a remarkable collaboration—highlighting the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, soprano Julia Bullock, guest artists Joshua Redman, Antonio Sanchez, Derrick Hodge, and The Roots’ premier MC Black Thought—for his forthcoming album, Freedom Over Everything, on BMG’s Modern Recordings label imprint.
The album opens with Mendoza’s 5 movement “Concerto for Orchestra” which was commissioned by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, with whom Mendoza has had a working relationship for the last several years. The collaboration aimed to create a work that would feature soloists in the orchestra but to somewhat forge a new direction in this revered form. “My approach is a departure from the traditions of an orchestra concerto. For me it was more about having an arc that tells a particular story but also incorporates rhythmic and melodic aspects of African American music and improvisation.” explains Mendoza.
“Coinciding with the composition of the concerto was the 2016 [American] saga of the election of ‘45’ and the resulting tremendous discord in the U.S. during that time. While writing this piece, the events happening in our country invaded my artistic space. For the first time I felt I couldn’t really write music and be removed from what was going on in our environment. I started seriously considering the importance of an artist to reflect the times and how I could make my music a reflection not only of what I was witnessing but what I hoped would occur. So that’s when the arc of this concerto started to take shape.”
Mendoza, as a skilled practitioner of the classical-jazz fusion that Gunther Schuller once called Third Stream, was and is ideally suited to meet this challenge. “I sought to design the structure of the concerto to be inspired by M.L. King’s remarks on the moral universe, that the arc is long, but it bends toward justice. The beginning of the concerto (the first movement is called ‘American Noise’) reflects the discord that began leading up to the 2016 election. Of course, it pales in comparison to what we dealt with in 2020 and now 2021,” says Mendoza, “but the arc of the composition goes through that process of pure noise, much needed consolation and the need for ‘hitting the streets’. The end of the concerto seeks to reflect justice and the hope for a peaceful resolution to what we were only entering in 2016. Arguably in 2021 we still haven’t quite gotten there.”
Throughout the “Concerto for Orchestra”, drummer Antonio Sanchez provides rhythmic textures using color, placement and variation accenting the various motifs and ideas expressed in Mendoza’s score. “Antonio thinks and plays like a composer,” says Mendoza. “He was the perfect person to step into this music. He was very sympathetic to what I wanted to achieve, while never losing his voice in the process.” Joshua Redman’s saxophone performance in “Meditation” provides an important improvisational voice to the movement. Mendoza points out that the piece was not originally conceived to have improvised commentary in it. “Once we recorded it, I thought that the music asked for Joshua’s dialog with the orchestra. Joshua understood the purpose and the mood that was needed in that moment, and he played so beautifully.”
The 5th movement of the concerto, “Justice and the Blues,” is a sly reference to two famous quotations from philosopher and public intellectual Dr. Cornel West: “Justice is what Love looks like in public,” and “The Blues responds to the catastrophic with compassion, without drinking from the cup of bitterness.” “When we recorded this piece last year in July (of 2019) in particular that last movement – the middle section of that piece that has the groove and the vamp, was originally going to be an instrumental solo,” Mendoza recalls, “I thought we should really have a message there through rap instead. Listening to the recordings of Black Thought, his work seemed to reflect a certain awareness of message I wanted to bring out in this piece. When he agreed to record, Covid hit the U.S. and we were delayed. And then (the death of) George Floyd happened – and then the reaction to George Floyd happened. And so, the shift of consciousness of what we thought was going to be in Black Thought’s performance was entirely different. Then he came up with this amazing heartfelt text!” Bassist Derrick Hodge provides a foundation of groove for the music and Black Thought’s text of Freedom Over Everything.
“In a way, my plan for a long, constructed arc was interrupted by reality. That’s sort of Jazz sensibility. You can plan your structure but then somebody comes in with their voice and completely changes your point of view. And I love that part of it –things are going to change when the human spirit gets put into it. Improvisation gives us that.” Mendoza is uniquely suited to address these challenges with the ability to speak in the language of the composer and the language of the improviser. It is this denouement which allows for the transition from the end of the “Concerto for Orchestra” to “The Edge of Longing.”
When Mendoza finished writing the concerto the years of turbulence portrayed in the narrative arc of the music seemed to cry out for a piece that might serve as consolation communicating that ‘it’s going to be OK.’ “I wanted it also to be somewhat of an encouraging text that was going to bring people together and bring light into our situation,” Mendoza explains. “To The Edge Of Longing” is an extraordinary art song setting composed by Mendoza for Julia Bullock with orchestral accompaniment, based on verses from the “Book of Hours” by the late 19th, early 20th century poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke.
Ms. Bullock described her approach to the material this way: “Vince wrote a poignant setting of an English translation of the German text by Rilke, which is what first got me excited about the project. There’s an intimacy in what is said, but the intensity of the words makes the scope far reaching, and Vince’s music follows that framework. The singers and interpreters I most respect and admire have clear intentions in the delivery of whatever music they share, and I aim for that same kind of immediacy—whether it was music written centuries ago or with my voice in mind. As long as there’s a message to be communicated and a genuine connection to that message, I find no reason to limit how to use my voice, or in which context. So, in that respect, it’s wonderful to participate in a project that is also uninhibited.”
There’s a through line music lovers can identify from Vince Mendoza’s body of work as an arranger and from his previous long form orchestra works as a composer; especially Epiphany 1999 and Constant Renaissance 2019. “New York Stories,” a Concertino for Trumpet and Orchestra, was commissioned by the Czech National Symphony featuring trumpeter and orchestra founder Jan Hasenöhrl. As with the artists and the orchestra, Mendoza selected a co-producer and engineer with the capability and experience to be able to work in both the jazz and classical idioms equal to his own whom he knew from his work with the Metropole Orchestra. Jonathan Allen, formerly the chief engineer at the most famous recording studio in the world, Abbey Road was responsible for the recording, mixing and mastering of this album. If it is true, as Aristotle once said, that “Music has the power of producing a certain effect on the moral character of the soul,” then Vince Mendoza’s Freedom Over Everything is sure to be received as a welcome addition to the times in which we live.
Track Listing:
1. Concerto for Orchestra: American Noise 09:47
2. Concerto for Orchestra: Consolation 05:09
3. Concerto for Orchestra: Hit the Streets 04:52
4. Concerto for Orchestra: Meditation 03:47
5. Concerto for Orchestra: Justice and the Blues 04:27
6. Freedom Over Everything 01:27
7. Concerto for Orchestra: Finale 02:16
Grammy Nominee for Best Instrumental Composition
8. To the Edge of Longing 08:19
Grammy Award for Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals
9. New York Stories (Concertino for Trumpet and Orchestra) 15:37
All music composed, arranged and conducted by Vince Mendoza, except:
”Freedom Over Everything”: music by Vince Mendoza, lyrics by Black Thought
”To The Edge Of Longing”: music by Vince Mendoza, words by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) from Das Studenbuch (1905), translated by Leonard Cottrell, used by permission
Personnel:
Vince Mendoza: composer and conductor
Tom Walsh: trumpet (6)
Lukas Chejn: guitar (1)
Derek Hodge: guitar (5-7, 9)
Paul Jackson, Jr.: guitar (6)
Arm Kersbergen: bass (1-4)
Joshua Redman: tenor sax (4)
Antonio Sanchez: drums
Oleg Sokolov: marimba (6)
Black Thought: rap vocal (6)
Julia Bullock: vocal soprano (8)
Alexej Rosik: violin (8)
Czech National Symphony Orchestra
Jan Hasenohrl: Director, trumpet (9)
Recorded June 2019 and February-March 2020, at CNSO studios, Prague, CZ
Studio Crew: Stanislav Baroch, Cenda Kotzmann, Vojta Komarek
Additional recording:
Julia Bullock recorded May 2020 by Michael Hinreiner at Bavaria Studios, Munich
Joshua Redman recorded July 2020 by Gabriel Shepard at 25th Street Recording, Berkeley, California
Produced by Vince Mendoza
Co-Produced, Recorded, Mixed and Mastered by Jonathan Allen
Executive Producer: Jan Hasenöhrl
Photography: Pamela Fong
Art Direction: Raj Naik
Review:
In the fall of that notorious election year of 2016, six-time Grammy-winning arranger/composer Vince Mendoza was working on a commission from the Czech National Symphony Orchestra. The five-movement piece, called simply “Concerto for Orchestra,” was driven by how much his gut churned at the mere possibility that 45—not once in our interview does he use the name Trump—might win the presidency. “The temperature of America was shifting, and the music was a mostly emotional reaction to that,” Mendoza says of its soaring, shouting strings. “As I was putting the structure of the concerto together, it became more than an emotional and musical exercise. It was the realization that my music couldn’t be separated from what was happening in the world.”
October turned to November, and the dreaded possibility became reality. Mendoza’s musical response developed in real time. He began to think about other artists whose work embraced the winds of political change, good and bad. “In particular, Nina Simone’s quote about how artists must reflect their times—that got me. That’s when I really started making the structure of the piece reflect what I had hoped this cycle of noise, protest, eventual justice, and understanding would portray.”
With this concept in mind, the five movements were completed. Or so Mendoza thought. Years passed. The CNSO recorded the piece in July 2019, with help from saxophonist Joshua Redman, bassist Derrick Hodge, and drummer Antonio Sánchez. But something still seemed to be missing in the final movement. A rap came to mind—something spoken, rhythmic, and righteous—that would offer a necessary punctuation, the answer to what the composer hoped to achieve.
“Then,” Mendoza continues, “George Floyd happened, as did the reaction to George Floyd.” He had already been talking to rapper Tarik “Black Thought” Trotter, mouthpiece of the Roots, about creating a text for the final movement. Now, in the midst of a season of death and rage, the desired message of that text became clear: Freedom is life’s most important element. “Freedom over everything, for everybody, is what we should aspire to,” Mendoza says. “Even though Tarik’s rap offers no resolution—there is no resolution to our problems until everyone is free and safe.”
Freedom Over Everything is also the title of Mendoza’s latest album—his debut on the new Modern Recordings label—of which “Concerto for Orchestra” forms the centerpiece. Jazz with a social conscience is hardly new, of course; Max Roach’s We Insist!, Archie Shepp’s Attica Blues, Ornette Coleman’s Skies of America, and Wynton Marsalis’ Blood on the Fields all come to mind. But Freedom Over Everything is something different, a Copland-esque masterpiece as rich, varied, and literary in its tone, as well as in its defiance and historicity, as the equally epic trilogy of novels that make up John Dos Passos’ U.S.A.
“Just a look [at] Vince’s work shows his ability to deal with very different musical characters and genres,” says Modern Recordings’ owner/CEO Christian Kellersmann. “You can talk to him for hours about different styles and influences. No matter if it’s contemporary or vintage. This open-minded approach fits Modern. We like unexpected combinations.”
The composer himself happily notes that Freedom Over Everything started as a piece of music with a certain structural idea. “Then,” he adds, “things happen. Then other things happen. We change gears. Move left instead of right. Go through a groove that’s unknown and find another way.”
That pretty much describes Mendoza’s life going all the way back to Norwalk, Connecticut, where he was raised, learning classical guitar, trumpet, and piano early on. From there he snagged a degree in music composition at Ohio State University, then completed post-grad composition/conducting studies at USC, with stints writing music for film and television within that time frame.
Before he gathered steam on any instrument’s technique, though, Mendoza was a preteen radio fanatic enthralled by the Sound of Philadelphia, Gamble & Huff and, in particular, songwriter/arranger Thom Bell. “The Spinners, the O’Jays, Harold Melvin—the whole scene that was Philly soul was where the light went on,” he says happily. “I wanted to write music that sounded like that. I wanted to be in the studio conducting the orchestra with the singers at their most harmonious. I wanted to be inside of that groove. I’m not thinking about the Berlin Philharmonic when I’m thinking of a glockenspiel, but rather Thom Bell.”
To this writer’s ear, much in Mendoza’s work also seems to stem from the masterful asymmetry of soundtrack composer Jerry Goldsmith, a man whose scores for Chinatown and Planet of the Apes are somehow evocative of a time and place that can’t be easily pinpointed. “You’re right on the money with Goldsmith, as he is my favorite of all Hollywood-pantheon film composers,” he says. “Now, I would be remiss if I didn’t say that there was a connection between Goldsmith and Stravinsky and Bartók, composers I revered. But Jerry was a master of his art and his craft. That Planet of the Apes score is incredible, my go-to Goldsmith.” Another clear influence, Gil Evans, surprisingly didn’t become a thing for Mendoza until he’d gotten into arranging; for jazz ensemble writing, it was Henry Mancini (“all the way, from the time I was six listening to the Mancini ’67 record”) whose inspirational light shone the brightest.
The professional composer in Mendoza first came out while befriending kindred spirit Peter Erskine. He wrote for and with the Weather Report drummer on 1986’s Transition, their first of many recordings to come under each man’s name. From there, Mendoza’s compositions would quickly begin gracing albums by the likes of Joe Lovano, John Abercrombie, Gary Burton, Pat Metheny, Michael Brecker, Charlie Haden, and Kurt Elling.
“Musicians don’t live in a bubble,” he laughs. “We function and grow as part of a community. That’s the most beautiful part of it. We play with them once, and we’re friends forever. In regard to starting with Peter, he was the drummer in my head then, as a result of all he had done on those amazing Weather Report albums. Our relationship resonated with a shared language, and a similar approach to rhythm. Parenthetically, Joe [Zawinul] and Wayne [Shorter] were also voices in my head because of those same recordings. Through them, I learned that you could have one idea that inspired the next idea that inspired the next next idea. The idea of an A-B-A form—that boxy structure—suddenly went out the window.” To this day, Mendoza insists that using the question “What would Wayne do?” is often a way of answering his line-writing problems.
As for arranging, Mendoza picked up on that algebraic skill set after he’d already begun working on his own big-band compositions in the mid-’80s. “I didn’t seek out arranging. Somehow, when I started doing concerts with radio bands, in Europe in particular, our guests would come in and ask me to arrange something. I began a pattern of doing these arrangements that people must have liked, because I started getting calls to do the same for their records.”
That Mendoza arranged for jazz icons such as Zawinul and Return to Forever’s Al Di Meola as well as younger jazz contemporaries Mike Stern and Kyle Eastwood was one thing. To be invited to arrange for pop giants such as Joni Mitchell (2000’s Both Sides Now, which won Mendoza a Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist Grammy in 2001), Björk (2001’s Vespertine), and Elvis Costello (2006’s My Flame Burns Blue) was quite another. “Their interest in me always came from recordings that they had heard and liked,” he says. “Fortunately, they and their producers made the leap of faith that I would have the ability to step into their situation and be able to paint the picture they wanted to hang.”
Which brings us to the unusual case of Black Thought’s performance on Freedom Over Everything, in which the painting (Mendoza’s composition) had already been painted. “Unlike a soloist, [he’s] not changing the original track,” Mendoza notes. “This brings about a great question: What if you had recorded this together, or allow elements to change, just as what happened when instrumental improvisational solos came into view? Would the rap have been different? Would the music have been different? It is conceivable that if we were in the same room, Tarik might have chosen to do something different.” Expect an upcoming Mendoza project to explore these matters.
For all of the work he’s done with others, it’s still the albums Mendoza has made as a leader that are his most intriguing. Looking back at early solo releases like 1990’s somber Start Here (with its elegant French-horn sound straight out of Philly) and 1991’s intricate Instructions Inside, we joke as to whether or not Mendoza “nailed it” on them. “Are you trying to say I didn’t?” he laughs. “I think that I nailed each for where I was at that time. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t do the nuts and bolts of their writing differently or change the structure somewhat. I tell everyone from young musicians I play with to students I teach: When it comes to making a first record, it sounds simple, but make sure you have something to say, and in a very organized way. I believe I did—I had already been writing ensemble music, had a voice and a particular way of saying things that made me know that I was strong enough to start. I only wish I had a better time making it, as my first album featured some of the greatest musicians on the planet, and I was just so serious about getting it done properly. I never stopped then to realize just how amazing those players were and enjoying the moment.”
For pure enjoyment’s sake, there is the Vince Mendoza/Arif Mardin Project’s Jazzpaña with the WDR Big Band from 1992, an album where Mendoza’s deep love of flamenco had a place to land. “Although I studied classical guitar and Spanish guitar music, I didn’t know anything, really, about flamenco except that I loved it,” he says. “With this, going forward with the WDR, I continued to try to figure out how it all worked.”
His mention of the WDR, based in Cologne, Germany, brings up a significant point: This American composer of American music sure spends a lot of time working with European ensembles, from the WDR and CNSO to the Dutch Metropole Orkest and the Berlin Philharmonic. “The first group I worked with in Europe, in the late ’80s, was the WDR,” he explains. “I was invited to arrange the music of Joe Zawinul, then stayed to do concerts of my own music. To this day, I have this relationship, as I’m working on another new project with them starting this June. The thing about that group, similar to the Metropole Orkest [of which he was chief conductor from 2005 to 2013], is that they have dedicated seasons to projects of music they truly love and believe in. These European ensembles provide music for the radio that they find interesting, that will engage listeners, and reflect their aesthetic vision. That’s how they survived any political turmoil.”
Speaking of political turmoil: The music that Mendoza writes has always looked inward, but on Freedom Over Everything, that vision turns itself inside out. Being interested in and inspired by the politics of the moment is a recent phenomenon for the composer. “I’ve always been interested in history, but that’s never linked up with my music. Until I started working on this record. Suddenly, I couldn’t separate what I was feeling and thinking from what I was composing and playing. Daily occurrences were affecting my creative process. It just happened. Where once I could separate the two things, suddenly it became time to pay attention to what was going on out there, and if I could somehow share my point of view through music—to put some light into the current situation.”
Mendoza points out that the fifth movement of his concerto nods to Dr. Cornel West in lines such as “The blues responds to the catastrophic with compassion, without drinking from the cup of bitterness.”
“West is a big jazz and R&B fan, and a lot of what he writes and lectures on deeply resonates for me,” says Mendoza, who wrote to West during the preparatory run-up to Freedom Over Everything. They talked about African American poets, critics, and other literary source material: Amiri Baraka’s writing on jazz, Lucille Clifton, Andra Lord, Ralph Ellison, and Zora Neale Hurston. As for the piece that follows the “Concerto for Orchestra” on the album, “To the Edge of Longing,” Mendoza turned to the work of German poet Rainer Maria Rilke. “I was looking for something that would have a seed of basic humanity,” he says. “After the difficult road of the ‘Concerto,’ I needed to have something that would send us off in an optimistic, encouraging way, to go out, create, and live life. And I found that in Rilke and The Book of Hours [originally published in 1905].” Operatic soprano Julia Bullock, whose reference came from trumpeter/composer Terence Blanchard, handles the duty of singing Rilke’s words (in English translation).
Antonio Sánchez—no stranger himself to socially conscious jazz (see his Bad Hombre and Lines in the Sand albums)—says, “It’s a cleansing process for any artist to bring all those negative feelings to the forefront of his or her work and transform them into something with beauty and purpose. That’s exactly what Vince so masterfully did with this album.”
The concerto, he further notes, “didn’t really have a drummer in it. I think it was [originally written for] several percussion players doing different parts, so I had to come up with a composite that would make it groove and gel as much as possible. But one thing is to practice it to the recording and another one is when you’re in the middle of that big orchestra, so naturally I had to adapt to what the moment required.”
Sánchez expresses his utmost admiration for Mendoza the conductor in such situations: “He doesn’t miss anything, and he also has a very calming and reassuring demeanor that makes everybody feel comfortable and relaxed … unless you’re not coming up with the goods. Then he has no qualms about calling you out, but always in a very diplomatic way.”
You could call it diplomacy of a sort, but Mendoza refuses to connect the dots between the past jazz protestations of Roach, Shepp, Marsalis, et al., and his own. “I approach my subject matter with great humility,” he states. “I can say that I am expressing my reaction. Projects such as the ones you mentioned, as well as the music of Gil Scott-Heron or John Coltrane’s ‘Alabama’ … I am not aspiring to make protest jazz, even if there are parallels.”
One thing’s for sure: Freedom Over Everything marks a seismic shift even from the albums that immediately preceded it, 2017’s Homecoming and 2011’s Nights on Earth, and Mendoza doesn’t foresee a return to their sound any time soon. “Nights on Earth was quasi-autobiographical, and I was glad to tell that story of my personal journey, with songs representing different people and different occurrences in my life. But this new one has greater purpose for me. It also took two years to make—so it was difficult and different.
“I won’t be able to go back,” he acknowledges. “Freedom Over Everything has changed me. Changed the game.”
A.D. Amorosi (JazzTimes)
