Aaron Davis Hall, City College of New York.
Most albums are more than simply the next tranche of songs by an artist, but This Rock We’re On: Imaginary Letters – a double-CD opus from Mike Holober & The Gotham Jazz Orchestra (Palmetto Records) – is the product of an unusual recipe: two parts personal ode to nature, one part academically-funded research, one part environmental activism, and a dash of jazz orchestra composition masterclass.
Mike Holober describes This Rock… as “a meditation on the beauty of nature and the fate of the planet”, and worked on it with the support of the Stuart Z. Katz Professorship in the Humanities and Arts at the City College of New York. At the album launch on June 14th at Aaron Davis Hall, at the City College of New York in Manhattanville, an intimate in-crowd was treated to a no-frills uncut rendition of the project.
The project is structured as a series of detailed instrumental pieces for the full jazz orchestra, each a tribute or musical ode to one of six environmentalists who inspired Holober. These are interspersed with shorter, small ensemble vocal pieces, framed as the eponymous Imaginary Letters to or from the same characters. The contrast between these two forms was sharp. The vocal pieces, led by Jamile Staevie Ayres, were concise tender moments, such as the loving “To Virginia”, structured around a letter from photographer Ansel Adams to his wife. The large format pieces leant on a full orchestra equipped with a gleaming arsenal of woodwind (the five saxophones on the front row alone shared 21 flutes, clarinets and saxophones between them). “Domes” was a storming example of the full group in action, the tussling horns layering a driving theme powered by the energetic Jared Schonig on drums, evidently relishing the power of the collective, delightful drumstick twirled in an elevated hand in anticipation of big hits.
Some pieces bridged the divide between the two formats: instrumental “Tides” opened with an extended introduction from Jody Redhage Ferber on cello, building into a gentle melody and an emotive solo from Jason Rigby’s breathy tenor as some roles reversed, Arco bass slipping behind plucked cello. Other pieces required a change of tone. “Tower Pulse” and “Erosion”, both written for Castle Valley in western Utah, switched Matt Clohesy’s upright bass for electric, and Holober’s grand for keys. But the most successful orchestrations, like “The Dirt Lover’s Almanac”, were those that harnessed the live visual spectacle of the Gotham Jazz Orchestra’s contained choreography and combined it with the individual spectacle of a solo cello; those that flitted between introspective piano, and strong clean sax themes over a rich horn backing.
The passion in the project was evident in the atmosphere, yet the environmental focus was at times more subtle. The closing piece, the title track “This Rock We’re On”, sought to remove this beyond doubt, both through the deceptively simple lyrics (“This is our home; be good to her please”) and the powerful visual and aural jolt from the deployment of child vocalist Ronan Rigby. He stood in front of his proud beaming saxophonist father, extolling the wonders of the animals of nature, imploring us in a wavering voice to take “take care of them, and me”. This Rock We’re On: Imaginary Letters will not fix our current planetary predicament. However, it can certainly remind us of the finer things in life that we currently enjoy and are at risk of losing, whether in the natural world or in the refined jazz orchestra cultural one – if we don’t try harder to fix our planet soon.
