Meltframe (Firehouse 12)
Mary Halvorson
Released September 4, 2015
Arts Fuse 2015 Jazz Critics Poll Top 10 New Album
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nU-dnNu9Mc__RhehZFXFkyccmdNjUYOEE
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/intl-pt/album/00S6tD68T69Opox43fMWAJ?si=4yIl2fhbRZGMRDk3-55l3Q
About:
Mary Halvorson’s “Meltframe” is the product of three years of gestation and refinement. Initially conceived as a solo guitar album made up of jazz standards, the final document is comprised of modern compositions long admired by Mary, the oldest being Duke Ellington’s “Solitude”. The remainder of the pieces date between the early 1960s through to Tomas Fujiwara’s “When”, a recent addition to the book of music for The Hook Up, an ensemble in which Halvorson is a charter member. In a twist befitting a player with such an original voice, the pieces Mary chose to interpret are not exclusively from composers who have informed her playing and music from the beginning, such as Roscoe Mitchell, Ornette Coleman and Oliver Nelson, but also by contemporaries of hers, Chris Lightcap, Noël Akchoté and Tomas. Viewed as the personal, and often revealing statement that solo documents often are, “Meltframe” traces Mary’s path from the beginning to the present.
Track Listing:
1. Cascades (Oliver Nelson) 04:07
2. Blood (Annette Peacock) 04:05
3. Cheshire Hotel (Noël Akchoté) 02:59
4. Sadness (Ornette Coleman) 03:42
5. Solitude (Duke Ellington) 05:49
6. Ida Lupino (Carla Bley) 04:19
7. Aisha (McCoy Tyner) 05:21
8. Platform (Chris Lightcap) 05:22
9. When (Tomas Fujiwara) 04:00
10. Leola (Roscoe Mitchell) 03:37
Personnel:
Mary Halvorson: guitar
Recorded November 4th & 5th, 2014, at Firehouse 12, New Haven, CT
Recorded, Mixed and Mastered by Nick Lloyd
Graphic Design: Megan Craig
Produced by Mary Halvorson, Ches Smith and Nick Lloyd
Review:
It should come as no shock that Mary Halvorson’s first solo
guitar album is a mind-bender. In the past, regardless of where she’s gone and
who she’s gone with, Halvorson has managed to surprise by liberally mixing
uncommonly aggressive assaults, open-ended exploration(s), and, on occasion,
calm(ing) cogitation. Here, standing all by her lonesome, all three of those
aspects are in play.
What’s most shocking about this one is the material that Halvorson uses and the
way she positions herself as an antagonist and semi-loyalist while
interpreting these pieces. It’s
hard not to be impressed with the way she speaks to the mindset of Oliver
Nelson’s “Cascades” while jolting the listener with her Tom
Morello-esque rawness. Later, she further connects and confounds,
stripping Duke Ellington’s “Solitude” bare while touching
perfectly on the topic at hand and beautifully shaping Carla Bley’s
“Ida Lupino,” a piano-centric composition that seems perfectly suited
for guitar when Halvorson gets done with it
There are balms and bombs to be found in this music, trap doors and doors of
perception to travel through, and flirtations with conventional ideas and the
great unknown. Ornette Coleman’s “Sadness” becomes a masterclass
in bent pitch gesticulation, somewhat warped yet solidly shaped; Tomas
Fujiwara’s “When” is a grungy rocker turned curious traveler; Roscoe
Mitchell’s “Leola” is pure cosmic energy; and Annette Peacock’s
“Blood” is a beautifully-executed masterwork, pure and not-so-simple.
Some musicians paint worlds when they perform, but Halvorson paints
entire solar systems with her guitar. There is nobody capable of doing what she
does here: Mary Halvorson gently coaxes out melodies and delivers distorted
truths that ring on long after this album concludes.
Dan Bilawsky (All About Jazz)
