Infinite Connections (Motéma)
Jihye Lee
Released May 31, 2024
JazzTimes 2024 Year in Review
All About Jazz Best Jazz Albums of 2024
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In recent years Jihye Lee, among the most acclaimed large-ensemble jazz composers/conductors of her generation, has thought a lot about her grandmother, who died in 2020 at age 85, after a punishing bout with dementia. Born in 1935 in Korea, then a Japanese colony, she was an orphan who married as a teenager, primarily as protection from the sex trade that exploited parentless children like herself. Every day, often while her husband drank at the local bar, she’d traverse a frozen river to gather tinder for a fire that would warm her home and enable her to cook for her family.
Lee’s grandmother witnessed extreme political, social and technological shifts in Korea in the ensuing decades, most of these changes positive, even liberating. But she carried an abiding sadness with her throughout her life. “It wasn’t self-pity,” Lee explains. “It was like a deep sorrow in her soul.”
In composing Infinite Connections, her new Motéma follow-up to the award-winning and critically lauded Daring Mind, Lee reflected intensely on such stories of familial and cultural history. She contemplated womanhood and the patriarchal oppression she saw around her growing up in Korea — and why she had few female role models as a young singer-songwriter. Lee felt a newfound need to understand her ancestry, which she saw as largely irrelevant once she’d moved to America and experienced success away from her family.
“I was questioning my identity. Who am I?” she recalls. “And the most important connection, one I will never be able to deny, is that I am a daughter of my mother. I’m from her body.” Lee realized, of course, that her grandmother could have defined herself in the same way, and that the seemingly personal bonds in her life could extrapolate outward until they encompassed all of humankind. Infinite connections.
These are heady concepts to explore in an orchestral jazz album, to be sure, but Lee has a rare gift for conveying narratives through her music with power, grace and imagination. Case in point: Each progressive jazz piece on Infinite Connections features a traditional Korean rhythm, a brilliantly literal correlation between Lee’s heritage and her current reality as a celebrated bandleader living in Brooklyn. Even more fascinating, she’s coming to these Korean rhythms after having absorbed the art of jazz arranging first — a Korean-born artist tackling her homeland’s traditional music through the lens of an American jazz composer.
Throughout the album, the Japanese-born percussionist Keita Ogawa, of fusion heroes Snarky Puppy, offers virtuoso performances of these rhythms in seamless integration with the orchestra’s regular rhythm section. To Lee’s credit, it’s a remarkable feat of arranging, a meld of two musical strategies that appear to be at odds: the ritualistic, hypnotic repetition of Korean rhythm subsumed into Lee’s distinctive approach to composition, which balances her love for musical surprise with a keen sense of overall structure she gleaned as a singer-songwriter.
To say it another way, stark shifts in dynamics, time, texture and harmony only enhance her music’s ability to engage her audience. Her co-producer, the visionary composer and bandleader Darcy James Argue, was once again at Lee’s side during her recording sessions, helping to shape her aesthetic by emphasizing both boundless creativity and meticulous attention to detail. “Darcy is the perfect producer,” Lee says, “someone I can really trust.”
Argue’s task, as he explains it, was to keep the sessions running smoothly and on time and allow Lee to focus on her role as conductor. In that capacity, he says, “She’s a great natural conductor. She moves with a lot of grace.” And her skills are only gathering strength. “There’s really no substitute for having that experience of being live in front of musicians. … She’s blossomed into that role in a wonderful way.”
Guest soloist Ambrose Akinmusire is also deployed on Infinite Connections in a way that honors his vast gifts as a trumpeter while serving Lee’s larger ideas. The story of his presence here begins at the Village Vanguard, where Lee took in a performance she found positively soul-stirring. “I could hear his deep soul, his philosophies, his spirituality. And this album carries that kind of theme,” she says. “I wanted my album to reflect soul-to-soul connection, and I couldn’t think of any better trumpeter than Ambrose.”
Akinmusire appears on two tracks, including “Surrender,” where he navigates the boldly unconventional harmony of the solo section with his trademark combination of peerless technique and striking emotionality. Other album highlights include “We Are All From the Same Stream,” with solos by trombonist Alan Ferber and saxophonist Jason Rigby, a grooving exploration of a simple but profound fact: No matter how different we might be from one another, we all share the same joy and anguish that define the human experience.
“Born in 1935” chronicles the life of Lee’s grandmother, starting with a major chord that signifies the innocence and happiness of youth; as impoverishment and patriarchy take hold, the piece’s harmony darkens and the tempo accelerates with anxiety. Along the way, alto saxophonist David Pietro offers an evocative marathon solo underscoring his matchless big-band resume. “Eight Letters” is a tragic companion track of sorts to “Born in 1935.” Its title is taken from Korean astrology and represents the eight letters, assigned at birth, that signify a person’s fate. Because the death of Lee’s grandmother was so sudden — battling dementia, she wandered outside for hours one night until she collapsed in a sesame field — the composer’s own mother succumbed to immeasurable heartbreak. Over the course of a year, she grieved so intensely that her despair manifested physically and she ended up bedridden. “Now that grief is mine,” Lee says. “I blamed the misfortune on my mother’s eight letters. There are unanswered questions, and chaos.”
Along with such human trials, Lee’s eight letters have contained unprecedented triumphs. In South Korea she developed a career as a singer-songwriter — as well as a burning desire to discover herself and find her footing away from Korea’s male-dominated culture. “I wanted to see the bigger world,” she says. “I wanted to find my own voice as an artist.” Facing down bewilderment and naysaying from her family and community, she moved to the States and enrolled at the esteemed Berklee College of Music, where a jazz composition course sparked the flame that became her calling. “It happened as if it was fate,” she reflects. “I always had an enormous passion for creating something, rather than being a part of the creation. I wanted to be a creator.” She won Berklee’s prestigious Duke Ellington Award in composition twice and moved to New York City, where her professional life began in earnest.
She’s since discovered confidence in herself that she couldn’t have imagined as a younger woman in South Korea. It’s the result of seeing strong women thrive on the jazz scene in New York, as well as a tribute to her Korean ancestors, who overcame monumental struggles so that Lee might one day fulfill her dreams. “Right now, I can happily say that I’ve earned a feeling of ownership in my work, and I’m grateful for my band members who give me trust,” she says. “They don’t treat me as a woman; they treat me as a leader, composer and conductor.”
Track Listing:
1. Surrender (feat. Ambrose Akinmusire) (6:22)
2. We Are All From The Same Stream (6:38)
3. Born In 1935 (7:07)
4. Eight Letters (6:59)
5. Karma (7:54)
6. You Are My Universe (feat. Ambrose Akinmusire) (7:33)
7. Nowhere Home (6:59)
8. In The Darkest Night (8:32)
9. Crossing The River Of Grace (5:11)
All compositions by Jihye Lee
Personnel:
Jihye Lee Orchestra
Jihye Lee: conductor
Woodwinds
Ben Kono: alto, piccolo, flute
David Pietro: alto, flute, alto flute
Jason Rigby: tenor, flute, clarinet
Jonathan Lowery: tenor, flute, clarinet
Carl Maraghi: baritone, bass clarinet
Trumpets
Brian Pareschi: trumpet, fluegelhorn
Nathan Eklund: trumpet, fluegelhorn
David Smith: trumpet, fluegelhorn
Stuart Mack: trumpet, fluegelhorn
Trombones
Mike Fahie: trombone
Alan Ferber: trombone
Nick Grinder: trombone
Jeff Nelson: bass trombone
Rhythm Sections
Alex Goodman: guitar
Adam Birnbaum: piano
Matt Clohesy: bass
Jared Schonig: drums
Keita Ogawa: percussions
Special Guest
Ambrose Akinmusire: trumpet
Recorded at Power Station at BerkleeNYC on October 17 & 18, 2023
Recording and Mixing Engineer: Brian Montgomery
Assistant Engineer: Ben Miller
Recording Production Assistants: Eunha So, Jisu Jung
Mastering: Randy Merrill, Sterling Sound, NJ
Cover photo: Hyemi Kim
Artwork Design: Sukbum Kim
Produced by Darcy James Argue and Jihye Lee
Executive Producer: Matt Mullenweg
Review:
Some eighty-odd years ago a handful of trailblazers led by saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie changed the vocabulary of jazz, introducing bebop as a successor to trad jazz and swing and radically transforming the music’s landscape and perspective. Their terminology remained pretty much intact for a number of years, with partisans choosing a path between the diverse genres, until at last the very definition of jazz began to move in new directions with newcomers such as cool jazz, third stream, avant-garde (or free), fusion, acid jazz, rock and funk elbowing their way onto the field of play. Today, the language of jazz is broader than ever, not only accommodating the varieties already named but adding to them music native to various countries or areas wherein the idea and blueprint of jazz has been introduced and implemented. In other words, jazz with an international accent.
Which is a roundabout way of introducing listeners to South Korea-born, New York-based composer Jihye Lee and her orchestra, whose third album, Infinite Connections, neatly blends elements of American jazz with traditional music from her homeland. The contrast is conspicuous from the outset, as Lee and the orchestra explore the first of her nine thematic works, “Surrender,” which, she writes, is “an active determination to trust, trusting the goodness of the whole.” In practice, this is a rhythmically strong pastiche showcasing the ensemble’s proficiency and the impressive chops of guest trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire who reappears later on the tender and tranquil “You Are My Universe.”
Drummer Jared Schonig takes the lead on the robust “We Are All from the Same Stream,” bolstering admirable solos by trombonist Alan Ferber and tenor saxophonist Jason Rigby and setting the stage for Lee’s loving tribute to her grandmother, “Born in 1935.” Again, the Korean influence is there but does not intrude on or override the essential jazz viewpoint. The able soloist on alto is Dave Pietro. The candid “Eight Letters,” which follows, is rooted in Korean astrology, which says we are born with eight letters that determine our path in life, while “Karma” expresses in musical terms the transformation of women from chattel to shining lights in Korean society. The vibe is hopeful, the thud-heavy landscape generally pleasing, the apt alto solo courtesy of Ben Kono, before which Rigby and guitarist Alex Goodman share blowing space on “Karma.”
The engrossing “Nowhere Home” follows “You Are My Universe.” Its ethereal perspective makes good use of rhythmic and percussive components, an integral feature of almost every number on the album. This is especially true of the muscular finale, “Crossing the River of Grace,” which follows the handsome ballad, “In the Darkest Night.” (Pianist Adam Birnbaum takes the solo on “Darkest Night”; on “River of Grace” it is trumpeter David Smith.) In sum, Infinite Connections is remarkable contemporary jazz with a slight yet definitive Korean accent, marvelously written by Lee and impeccably performed by the orchestra with a special shout-out to the able-bodied rhythm section (Schonig, bassist Matt McCloskey and percussionist Keita Ogawa), who never falter even when carrying a heavy load on every number. For Lee and her splendid ensemble, the third time is a charmer.
Jack Bowers (All About Jazz)
