Caroline Davis: Portals, Volume 1: Mourning
Sunnyside Records

To appreciate the range of which alto saxophonist Caroline Davis is capable, compare the sound of Alula, which she issued with drummer Greg Saunier and keyboardist Matt Mitchell in 2019 on New Amsterdam Records, to that of her latest collection Portals, Volume 1: Mourning, this one on Sunnyside. In place of intense, at times blistering trio performances, the new one presents a nonet performing Davis's charts and doing so with passion and finesse. Though the ensemble comprises jazz quintet—Davis with trumpeter Marquis Hill, pianist Julian Shore, bassist Chris Tordini, and drummer Allan Mednard—and string quartet components, the latter's integrated into the arrangements rather than simply grafted on. That makes the outfit approximate the richly sonorous sound of a jazz chamber orchestra when the instruments involved include woodwind, horn, percussion, and the strings of violinists Mazz Swift and Josh Henderson, violist Joanna Mattrey, and cellist Mariel Roberts.

Davis's music is naturally informed by her wide-ranging background. Now ensconced in Brooklyn, the Singapore-born Davis spent many years in Chicago as both a member of its vital jazz community and as a student at Northwestern University, where she earned a Ph.D. in Music Cognition. Yet while intimations of that academic sensibility seemingly surface on the recording in the form of spoken passages and a track title such as “Acephalous Placebo,” the primary focus of Portals, Volume 1: Mourning has to do with Davis's dealing with her father's passing in early 2019. It goes without saying that the impact of that event was exacerbated by the onset of the pandemic, with all of the anxiety, bewilderment, isolation, and sadness it incurred.

In the wake of her father's death, she immersed herself in writings about grief and trauma and quickly realized the need to deal with his passing but also address the sometimes difficult relationship the two had. Helping her work through this period were a residency at the McDowell Artists' Colony in New Hampshire, where she began developing the material that would eventually appear on the album, and a grant from the Jerome Foundation, which enabled her to complete the writing and then record in December 2020 at Oktaven Audio in Mt. Vernon, New York. Consistent with Davis's mindset, the music approaches recovery from trauma in three different ways: the first approaches it analytically, the second emotionally, and the third somatically. Remembering, reflecting, acknowledging, self-monitoring, and authentically engaging with the event become key parts of the healing process.

Her propensity for imaginative music-making is shown in the opening “Yesterday's Seven Thousand Years” when it begins with band members reciting words from “Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám,” a poem her father included with his photo in a high school yearbook. That arresting gesture is a mere lead-in, however, to a grand ensemble statement with a concise solo from the leader elevating the performance and clearing the way for a powerful turn by Shore. With strings added, the sound field expands for “Hop On Hop Off,” its rhythmic stuttering suggestive of a bus's movements as passengers get on and off. Davis solos regularly on the recording, but she also shares the limelight throughout, with an unaccompanied Roberts, for example, featured in an extended solo at the centre of “Hop On Hop Off” and “Left” likewise ceding the stage to solo violin for its opening minutes. The brief “On Stone” is given over entirely to tactile effects produced by the string players, before “How to Stop a Drop of Water from Evaporating” opens with a wild violin-and-drums passage before developing into a daring melange of instrumental and speaking voices.

Elsewhere, the mood turns wistful for “Highlighter Hearts,” its title a reference to the highlighter-written letters Davis's father used to send her, and the album is at its most personal when she opens “The Inflated Chariot Awaits Defeat” with an unaccompanied solo and then layers her spoken poetry (“Some writers say inflated pride is a delusion … Does your pride continue when your body leaves this plane? …”) overtop. Davis and Hill show themselves to be complementary sparring partners, as both invest their individual deliveries with a bright tone and agile execution (see “The Inflated Chariot Awaits Defeat” and “Acephalous Placebo” for fine respective examples of their playing). Anything but metronomic rhythm-keepers, Tordini and Mednard power the band with an ever-responsive swirl that keeps the music swinging.

September 2021