gratitude (International Anthem)
Cassie Kinoshi’s seed
Released March 22, 2024
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About:
In March of 2023 composer, arranger & alto saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi premiered a commissioned suite of music in front of a sold out crowd at London’s Southbank Centre. She wrote the piece – gratitude – for her flagship large ensemble seed., in a special augmented formation that also featured turntablist NikNak and the London Contemporary Orchestra (LCO).
Followers of UK Jazz know Kinoshi from her previous work with seed. (including the Mercury Prize-nominated album Driftglass, released by jazz re:freshed in 2019), or as a former member of Kokoroko. But her compositional résumé also extends deeply into orchestral work for concert hall, contemporary dance, film, visual art, and theatre, with high profile collaborators including London Sinfonietta, Philharmonia Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra. That depth of experience is on full display on gratitude, with the textural and dynamic flexibility of her large ensemble covering musical ground from groove-focused modal melancholia to anthemic brass and string themes. Striking upon first listen and even richer on repeat visits, gratitude scores the soul of contemporary Black London with philharmonic craftwork in the tradition of legendary jazz arrangers like Mary Lou Williams, Oliver Nelson, and Carla Bley.
Similar to those keystone writer-arrangers, here Kinoshi wields the power of a large ensemble to convey nuanced human emotion. “gratitude was written as a means of guiding my own healing,” says Kinoshi. “My mother told me that she keeps a gratitude book where she writes one thing, no matter how big or small, every day that helps to re-focus her mind on practicing gratitude. The examples that she gave were seeing the flowers that she’d recently planted in her garden bloom and a kaleidoscope of butterflies that she saw flitting about a tree in her garden.”
Inspired by her mother’s focus on natural beauty and the meaningful minutiae of everyday life, Kinoshi was driven to work through her own relationship with mental health and to pour that into composition. “I was spending a lot of time on my own, often at my desk writing continuously,” says Kinoshi. “At 3pm everyday, the winter sun would be positioned opposite my window and shine directly onto my face. The task of writing this piece was one of the most difficult I’ve endured – because of the headspace that I was in at the time – and this would be the one thing in the middle of the day that would bring me a very deep sense of contentment… my first attempt at consciously practicing gratitude for something that I so often take for granted.”
“At this point in my artistic career, highlighting the often overlooked subject of mental health and what it means to move towards creating healthy, positive and introspective practices in regards to both understanding and regulating one’s own mental health is of the utmost importance to me.”
Throughout the writing process Kinoshi had the privilege of knowing that her composition would eventually be interpreted by seed. — an ensemble of players she founded in 2016 and whose collective talents she knows through and through. “The binding concept of seed. has always been to have a creative outlet that allows me to express and highlight subject matter important to me alongside musicians that I deeply respect, admire and enjoy spending time with,” explains Kinoshi. “It is the one environment where I feel extremely comfortable being able to experiment with sound authentically. Over the years, it has evolved in the sense that the more comfortable the band members get with interpreting my music, and the more we develop a creative language together, the more honest the music sounds.” That profound musical and personal trust helped make the ensemble a perfect vehicle for a composition augmented by new collaborators — in this case the LCO and NikNak.
Kinoshi and seed. first met turntablist NikNak at the Marsden Jazz Festival in 2019. After spending some time talking politics and sharing jokes it was clear that a creative relationship was possible. “I find that working with formidable artists that I get on well with on a personal level always leads to my best work, and knew as soon as I met NikNak that I wanted to work with them.”
On the genesis of her collaboration with the LCO, Kinoshi says: “I have always wanted to combine seed. with electronics and orchestral elements, as I have always envisioned the band performing multi-disciplinary works. I have long admired the members of the LCO and their way of successfully melding orchestral arrangements and improvisation with more contemporary artists. I was introduced to them via Lexy Morvaridi during his time at the Southbank Centre. It was through his support, creative insight and trust that we were able to make this project happen.” The beauty and harmony of these communal connections plus the depth and deftness of all the musickers involved truly made Kinoshi’s dream of this composition a reality.
Running confidently at 21 minutes and 33 seconds (not including the album’s B Side / final track “Smoke in the Sun,” which was recorded separately at Total Refreshment Centre) and going straight for the heart, gratitude is an evolved, emotionally attuned, creatively ambitious and compositionally exquisite philharmonic expression of post-millennial UK jazz.
Track Listing:
1. I (Cassie Kinoshi) 04:58
2. II (Cassie Kinoshi) 04:03
3. Interlude I (Cassie Kinoshi) 01:40
4. III Sun Through My Window (Cassie Kinoshi) 03:41
5. Interlude II (Cassie Kinoshi) 02:23
6. IV (Cassie Kinoshi) 04:45
7. Smoke in the Sun (Cassie Kinoshi) 05:36
Tracks 1-6 recorded live March 2023, at the Southbank Centre, Purcell Room, London, by Tony Birch Additional Recording November 2023, at Livingston Studios, London, by Dave Vettraino
Personnel:
Cassie Kinoshi: alto saxophone and composer
NikNak: turntables
Jack Banjo Courtney: trumpet 1
Joseph Oti-Akenteng: trumpet 2
Deji ljishakin: tenor saxophone
Joe Bristow: trombone
Hanna Mbuya: tuba
Maria Chiara Argirò: piano
Shirley Tetteh: guitar
Karl Onibuje: double bass
Rio Kai: double bass
Patrick Gabriel-Boyle: drums
Clare Bennett: flute
Alastair Penman: clarinet and bass clarinet
Ellie Consta: violin 1
Gillon Cameron: violin 2
Jordan Bergmans: viola
James Douglas: cello
Track 7 recorded April 2021, at Total Refreshment Centre, London, by Kristian Craig Robinson
Personnel:
Cassie Kinoshi: alto saxophone
Jack Banjo Courtney: trumpet 1
Sheila Maurice-Grey: trumpet 2
Deji ljishakin: tenor saxophone
Joe Bristow: trombone
Hanna Mbuya: tuba
Deschanel Gordon: piano
Shirley Tetteh: guitar
Rio Kai: double bass
Patrick Gabriel-Boyle: drums
All tracks mixed by Dave Vettraino
Mastered by David Allen
Artwork by GURIBOSH
Poetry by Belinda Zhawi
Review:
In March 2023, composer, saxophonist and arranger Cassie Kinoshi premiered and recorded her long form composition Gratitude to a sold-out audience in the Purcell Room of the Southbank Centre. It was composed for her ensemble seed. members of the London Contemporary Orchestra, and award-winning turntablist NikNak. That work is presented here as her International Anthem debut.
Gratitude reflects Kinoshi’s long meditation on the emotion of the title and using it to focus her mental health to guide her own healing. The impetus was a “gratitude book” kept by her mother, listing something to be thankful for each day, whether it be recently planted garden flowers, butterflies near a tree, or the morning sun. That act re-focused her mind with gratitude as a central life practice. Inspired by her mother’s focus on natural beauty, gratitude itself and its relationship with mental health, Kinoshi wrote with inspired concentration.
This incarnation of seed. is large: 18 pieces that includes two bassists, reeds, brass, string quartet, piano, guitar (played by Shirley Tetteh), drums, and turntables.
The work contains four movements and two interludes. It is introduced in “I” by droning violin, elliptical piano, and gently swelling reeds and brass. Strings frame the simmering twinned basses and drum kit pulse introducing a loping trumpet solo from Jack Banjo Courtney. The band ratchets the intensity with measured focus before asserting a near processional anthem. “II” retains the theme yet strips it back as strings, drums, bass, and piano, and later reeds, brass, and electric guitar, build out the harmony, adding a Latin tinge with modal accents. The all-too-brief “Interlude I” is simply a vehicle for Tetteh’s guitar in an elliptical conversation with piano, strings and drums. It gives way to “Sun Through My K Window” reflects an experience at Kinoshi’s writing desk when, daily at three p.m. the winter sun sat opposite her window and shone on her face. It brought her contentment and became her first conscious acknowledgment of gratitude in her everyday life. There is gorgeous interplay between strings, turntable and Maria Chiara Argirò’s lilting yet unwavering piano. “Interlude 2” is a darkly-tinged fantasia for strings with a single piano note pulse. It introduces the closing movement, “IV,” introduced with swing via atmospheric guitar and a brief trumpet break. Brass and strings join, playing together contrapuntally, as piano, drums and the basses bridge the conversational poles. Kinoshi’s soulful alto solo builds intensity before the rhythm section carries it. The final third is rich in dialogue between clarinet, trombone and trumpets with turnable effects elevating the exchange before strings frame its nadir. the album closes with a recorded live performance of “Smoke in the Sun” in April 2021 with a 10-piece seed. It is introduced by a double bass, electric guitar and drums, before horns deliver graceful swing, Tetteh’s lithe guitar break, and Kinoshi’s alto solo. Gratitude is a real achievement. It’s modern jazz suite that reflects Kinoshi’s considerable gifts as composer and arranger, but also communicated the complexities and possibilities of its namesake emotion.
Thom Jurek (AllMusic)
