Byron Asher: Skrontch Music
Sinking City Records

A title such as Skrontch Music could suggest New Orleans native Byron Asher's pitching a new genre. Not so: it's an early term for a swing era dance step Duke Ellington included in his show at the Cotton Club in the late ‘30s. In stressing the fourth beat, the 'Skrontch' propelled the dancer into the next bar, which struck Asher as an apt metaphor for a project that aspires to both look back to where we came from and point forward to what's ahead. On this ambitious debut recording, he honours New Orleans' musical legacy while at the same time invigorating his album material with fresh energy. The clarinetist/saxophonist had ample historical material to draw upon for the project, much of it centering on the development of the city's music during the early twentieth century. Oral history recordings and excerpts from public domain recordings are woven into the material such that a long list of key figures, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band's Charlie Gabriel, singer Bessie Smith, and Ellington clarinetist Barney Bigard among them, become part of the musical fabric.

Asher's decision to undertake the project grew out of a desire to better understand the socio-political milieu out of which the jazz he was regularly performing originated; visits to the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane University and a 2016 artist residency at the university's A Studio In The Woods proved pivotal in the project's evolution. Adding to the strength of the musical dimension, photos relating to the project enhance the release. The cover shows Louis Armstrong's birthplace, and Asher also did a shoot for the album where historically important spots around New Orleans were documented for press photos (the homes where Sidney Bechet and Barney Bigard grew up, for example).

The vibrant New Orleans spirit is captured by the musicians Asher assembled for the project, a multiracial and multigenerational collective. From the long-established James Singleton on upright bass to a comparative youngblood such as Aurora Nealand (clarinet and alto sax), all involved execute with conviction the suite's five parts. Appearing alongside them are Ricardo Pascal (clarinet and tenor sax), Reagan Mitchell (soprano and alto saxes), Shaye Cohn (cornet), Emily Frederickson (trombone), Steve Glenn (sousaphone), Oscar Rossignoli (piano), and Paul Thibodeaux (drumset). The tenet, a genuine cross-section of New Orleans' creative music community, generates a joyful, exuberant noise.

Each of the album's parts (the final two conjoined) presents a differentiating character. Effectively establishing the album's tone, a collage of early jazz recordings is featured at the start of “Blues Obligato,” with snatches of King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Mamie Smith, and Bessie Smith heard amidst the blues-drenched improvising of the musicians. A funky bass line by Singleton announces the onset of the journey's next stage, which the others build on with a supplicating figure voiced across the ensemble until it's played rapturously in unison. Two subsequent solo duets follow, with Neal and Frederickson up first and Cohn and Mitchell second, in both cases the timbral contrasts between the instruments making for clear separation. Perhaps the major takeaway from this opening track is the comfortable looseness of the group's execution and the ease with which it navigates through Asher's stages.

After a suave, classical minimalism-inspired intro, excerpts of oral history interviews with New Orleans clarinetists Alphonse Picou, Albert Nicholas, and Bigard appear in “Aural History,” Asher careful to not let the mellifluous musical backdrop overpower their voices. Lending a modernist character to the presentation, ensemble members recite text from the 1896 'Plessy v. Ferguson' Supreme Court ruling in “Comité des Citoyens,” the title referring to the activist organization whose act of civil disobedience prompted the 1892 arrest of Homer Plessy. Brushed drums and staccato horn accents animate the track robustly until the voices cede the stage to the band's rollicking swing. Essentially a twenty-minute two-part composition, the reverential “Elegy” flows into the encompassing “After this/that,” the former a full instrumental setting that progresses from a hushed intro to an almost modal-styled middle and eventually solo piano ostinato. That figure not only bridges the two parts but becomes a foundation for the large ensemble writing that blossoms from it and the solos (including a smooth one by Asher himself that's, in fact, his only solo moment in the suite) that rise above that foundation.

November 2019