Alliance: Alliance
Shifting Paradigm
Ten seconds into Alliance's self-titled debut album, alto saxophonist Sharel Cassity takes flight like Charlie Parker incarnate. Witnessing her soar over the furious base generated by pianist Hannah Meyer, bassist Carmani Edwards, and drummer Colleen Clark is definitely jaw-dropping, but it's merely one of many memorable moments on the release. Co-led by Cassity and Clark, the group blazes a hard bop trail through nine oft-fiery numbers, with trumpeter Kellin Hanas joining the group on one of them. In featuring original compositions with others by Herbie Hancock, Mary Lou Williams, Jimmy Heath, Harold Mabern, and Mulgrew Miller, Alliance honours its forebears and the jazz foundation they helped establish. While Alliance is very much built for today, it'd be the first to acknowledge it's part of a continuum and indebted to jazz history.
That connection is a natural outgrowth of the members' own experiences. Cassity, for example, played with luminaries such as Jimmy Heath and Roy Hargrove, while Clark's done the same with Branford Marsalis. Both women bring leadership, inspiration, and chops to the group endeavour. Through this project and in other ways too, Cassity and Clark are powerful advocates for women in jazz. While all of Alliance's members impress as soloists and ensemble players, Cassity deserves special mention. Her bright, smooth alto and the extra colours she contributes via soprano and flute are key to the album's impact. Clark makes a strong impression too when she constantly enhances the music with texture, imagination, and drive (check also her New Orleans-styled drumming on “Caro-li-na”).
Crisp and tight, the attack the four bring to the aforementioned Mulgrew composition “Wingspan” says much about the synergy the members enjoy. After Cassity completes her high-velocity statement, Meyer and Clark step forth with authoritative turns before the altoist guides the collective home. The tune's only three-and-a-half minutes but exudes enough energy to power a major city. Up next is Williams's “Syl-O-gism,” whose rather less furious tempo elicits a soulful and sultry treatment by the quartet. Speaking of soulful, Heath's “Gemini” engages for its swinging pulse and inspired solos by Cassity (on flute), Meyer, and Edwards. Hancock's “Maiden Voyage” receives an enticing makeover when Edwards' arrangement augments a soprano-wielding Cassity with Meyer on electric piano. And a voyage it is too when the quartet explores its possibilities for eight-plus minutes.
Elsewhere, Edwards steps forth as a composer with “Linger,” a late-night ballad meditation that coaxes a sensitive response from the group. Meyer's freewheeling “Something New” reinstates the boppish attack of the opening number, Cassity's alto again surfing the waves with authority. The rubato treatment given Clark's “La Tristeza” provides a beautiful showcase for Cassity's alto; decades of jazz history seem to emanate from her horn during this sultry take. The rousing set concludes with a steamy version of Mabern's “There But for the Grace of…” that finds Cassity and Hanas splendidly partnering at the front-line and making the idea of Alliance as a quintet a tantalizing proposition. After listening to this release, however, no one'll complain that it's four members only.April 2024