Ernesto Cervini: Joy
TPR Records

If there's one word to describe Ernesto Cervini's Joy, it's unpredictable. Pretty much every one of its fifteen tracks is different from the others in arrangement and style, and the shift from one to the next can be jarring. It's the kind of channel-surfing one expects from a Frank Zappa or Todd Rundgren, not so much a jazz figure like Cervini. Many of the tracks on Joy are short too, which adds to the mercurial character of the presentation.

Two clarifications are in order, however. The first is that calling Joy unpredictable isn't so much a criticism as simply statement of fact; there are multiple pleasures to be derived from the recording, including the element of surprise. Secondly, if Joy is musically all over the map, there is a conceptual element that strings its pieces together, specifically Louise Penny's Gamache series of detective novels, which Amy Cervini introduced to her brother about five years ago. Captivated by the novels, the Toronto-based drummer fashioned Joy as a musical treatment of Penny's Three Pines milieu and its colourful inhabitants. Amy's involvement didn't stop there, incidentally: the NYC-based vocalist sings on the opening track and co-produced the album.

In one respect, Joy offers an overview of the many projects with which Cervini's involved. Tracks featuring Turboporp, TuneTown, and Tetrahedron appear, and instrumentalists and singers with whom he's worked participate too. Joy is, in fact, the first album by the drummer to feature vocalists and even includes solo instrument spotlights—“Clara” with alto saxophonist Tara Davidson and “Peter Morrow” pianist Adrean Farrugia—on which the drummer doesn't play. Sequencing has been thoughtfully handled, with the scene-setting “Three Pines,” the name of the village where the books are primarily set, followed by portraits of various characters, among them Isabelle Lacoste and Jean-Guy Beauvoir, associates of detective Armand Gamache, plus many a town resident.

“Three Pines” effectively captures the idyllic character of the setting when the evocation slowly blossoms from hushed wordless vocalizing by Amy, Felicity Williams, and Emilie-Claire Barlow into an energized expression, with the drummer and acoustic bassist Dan Fortin powering the unit as electric guitarist Don Scott weighs in with a radiant solo. Hyper-charged by comparison is “Surprised By Joy,” a swinging, bop-fuelled exercise by Turboprop, the drummer's outfit with Fortin, Farrugia, trombonist William Carn, and saxophonists Tara Davidson (alto) and Kelly Jefferson (tenor, soprano). Slowing things down, TuneTown, with Cervini and Jefferson joined by acoustic bassist Artie Roth, steps up for “Myrna,” a slinky trio cut titled after town resident Myrna Landers. Grooving high is “Roar and Havoc,” named for a father and son who live in Three Pines and delivered urgently by Tetrahedron, Cervini's other saxophone trio with altoist Luis Deniz and electric bassist Rich Brown. For the most part a lyrical ballad, “Sandalwood and Rosewater” receives a pretty piano trio treatment from Fortin, Farrugia, and the leader, all three demonstrating impressive levels of musicianship in their sensitive essaying of the material.

Unusual combinations occasionally emerge on Joy, the pairing of muted trumpeter Jim Lewis and clarinetist Virginia MacDonald on “Ruth's Rosa” (named after Rosa, the pet duck of octogenarian Ruth Zardo) a case in point. Illustrative of the album's abrupt shifting, that swinging quartet romp's followed by “The Moth,” a dramatic poem-based setting featuring an expressive vocal interpretation by Alex Samaras, whose wordless contribution also graces the painterly meditation “The Beautiful Mystery.”

October 2022