Mulberry Street Symphony (Unit/Cowbell)
Anders Koppel
February 18, 2022
DownBeat Four-and-a-Half-Star Review
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lsBEyRQ9wevAnYDpcPkGBg44WXoDxz5lA
Spotify:
About:
Mulberry Street Symphony (composed 2016-2017) is a work by Anders Koppel in seven movements, each one based on one of the famous photos by Jacob Riis depicting the life among immigrants in New York in the 1880s. The symphony was performed twice with great success in October 2017 with Aalborg Symphony Orchestra, subsequently with Odense Symphony Orchestra – both performances conducted by Martin Yates and fronted by the three world-class jazz musicians:
Benjamin Koppel (saxophone), Scott Colley (bass) and Brian Blade (drums). The project was recorded and is now being finished for CD-release.
Riis – himself an immigrant from Denmark – was overwhelmed by the hard and desolate life among the thousands of immigrants like himself, who had hoped for a better life in the promised land. The work is a eulogy to the life and dreams of these people.
Track Listing:
1. Stranded In The Strange City 11:00
2. Minding The Baby 07:37
3. Tommy The Shoeshine Boy 19:54
4. Blind Man 06:42
5. The Last Mulberry 12:22
6. Bandit’s Roost 18:34
7. The New House 07:41
8. Encore Puerto Rican Rumble 09:38
Personnel:
Benjamin Koppel: alto saxophone
Scott Colley: bass
Brian Blade: drums
Odense Symphony Orchestra
Martin Yates: conductor
Mixing and Mastering Engineer: Preben Iwan
Review:
It’s difficult to say which element is the skeleton and which is the flesh in Mulberry Street Symphony — the jazz trio of alto saxophonist Benjamin Koppel (Danish composer Anders Koppel’s son), bassist Scott Colley and drummer Brian Blade, or the Odense Symphony Orchestra. The two work in tandem to achieve a sweeping narrative built from photographs of lives making way long ago; a community making moments based on moments from a community. In his 32nd concerto for soloists and orchestra, which he describes as “more a symphony with soloists,” Anders Koppel lays out musical interpretation of Jacob Riis’ photographs of life among immigrants in 1880s New York, reminding us all that these people had soul. Koppel wrote for the orchestra, in this case the Odense Symphony Orchestra conducted by Martin Yates, but largely left the trio to their own devices. With Benjamin Koppel taking the lead, this suite sprints, jaunts and soars. Scott Colley’s bass line starts the album off on “Stranded In The City’’ as an indication of how rooted this music is to the groove he establishes and maintains all throughout, just as integral as the beat from the legendary Brian Blade. Disc two’s “Bandit’s Roost” has the best shifting of positions and breakdown of elements one may have heard all year, pulling out all the stops of what this group of musicians is capable of doing. One may not expect a series of photographs from the 1880s to evoke “stank face,” but getting all these folks together some 140 years later to make music about it could just be taking the long way around.
Anthony Dean-Harris (DownBeat)
