Susan Alcorn Quintet: Pedernal
Relative Pitch Records

Mary Halvorson's Code Girl: Artlessly Falling
Firehouse 12 Records

Innovation comes as naturally to Mary Halvorson as breathing. Consider: in fashioning lyrics for her sophomore Code Girl release, she didn't use any of the customary singer-songwriter strategies. Instead, she deployed poetic forms such as the villanelle and pantoum, forms familiar to poets and English professors but few others. That move helps further individuate a group whose sound is already unlike any other in contemporary jazz. That begins with her guitar sound, whose liquefying quality would invite comparison to Dali's melting clocks if they weren't pictorially frozen. A true original, no one sounds like Halvorson. Adding to Code Girl's original persona are singer Amirtha Kidambi, tenor saxophonist María Grand, and trumpeter Adam O'Farrill, with the guitarist's Thumbscrew associates double bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Tomas Fujiwara completing the outfit. Halvorson also coaxed one of her long-time heroes, Robert Wyatt, out of retirement to sing on three of the eight tracks. Artlessly Falling sounds like both the next natural addition to her catalogue and also unlike anything else released this year.

Wyatt wasn't a late addition to the project, incidentally, as Halvorson wrote the songs on which he appears with him specifically in mind. Her love for the one-time Soft Machine and Matching Mole member goes back years. His singing is characteristically Wyatt-like, such that long-time lovers of Rock Bottom and Ruth is Stranger Than Richard will be chuffed by his appearance. His airy voice is gently buoyed by the guitarist on the breezy “The Lemon Trees,” which otherwise sees O'Farrill adding the first of many pungent solos and Fujiwara colouristically elevating the performance. The ensemble supports Wyatt so wonderfully during “Bigger Flames,” one imagines he'd want to use them as a backing unit were he to return to the studio for a full album.

In addition to the more formal poetic forms, Halvorson uses free verse in “A Nearing” whereas the politically charged “Last-Minute Smears,” dubbed a found poem, was constructed using extracts from Brett Kavanaugh's Congressional testimony. The music's initial funereal tone is in keeping with the text fragments that show him dismissing the accusations levied against him as a “circus” before declaring himself “a good judge.”

Kidambi's arresting vocal lines alternate with ensemble passages, improv episodes, and sections where sub-units emerge from the sextet. Her rapport with Formanek and Fujiwara—the bassist his usual unerring self and the drummer spontaneous and imaginative—comes through clearly, even when the inclusion of Grand and O'Farrill makes for a denser presentation. The trumpeter contributes a number of bold, toreador-like solos, Grand steps forth memorably in “A Nearing,” and the trade-offs between the two during “Bigger Flames” speaks to their compatibility.

Halvorson's maverick style captivates on its own—witness her wild shredding during the heavy parts of “Walls and Roses” and the hornet swarm she generates within “Mexican War Streets (Pittsburgh)”—but dazzles even more when embedded within these unusual structures. Her range as a player enables her to move from spidery delicacy to raw skronk in a flash, her execution ever tailored to the material. No track is a simple affair, with the leader inclining to long-form compositions (three pushing past ten minutes apiece) that rarely settle into place for long; as challenging as the material is, the musicians she's assembled compose a unit that's collectively flexible.

Some degree of continuity naturally bridges Artlessly Falling and Pedernal when Halvorson and Formanek form two-fifths of pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn's quintet. Her association with Halvorson dates to 2016 when the Baltimore-based Alcorn was included in her octet for the album Away With You and for shows supporting the release, and in each being a guitarist of unusual temperament the two share a special bond; there are moments, in fact, on Pedernal when their playing is so similar, the instruments begin to meld into an enlarged textural blur. Enhancing its distinctive soundworld are violinist Mark Feldman and drummer Ryan Sawyer.

One of Alcorn's key strengths is melody. Whereas the title track, for example, is grounded by a blues-folk figure that's equal parts mournful and lyrical, “Northeast Rising Sun” caps the release with a rhythmically infectious piece sweetened by a sing-song theme. Halvorson's her usual slippery self in these performances, and Sawyer is often as skittish. It's Formanek who stabilizes the material and allows the others to execute more freely than they might otherwise.

Alcorn's predilection for both chamber-styled material and improv-driven abstraction is captured in “Circular Ruins,” which advances from a composed intro where the five instruments function like orchestral sections into freer play. Different groupings keep things interesting too, with Feldman and Halvorson, for instance, engaging in an extended duo episode. In contrast to the sober character of “Circular Ruins,” “R.U.R.” sees the quintet digging into a playful exercise that begins in freebop mode before pivoting into a crepuscular zone. The scope of Alcorn's ambition is illustrated by “A Night in Gdansk,” a thirteen-minute set-piece that transitions from a chamber classical-styled opening into a graceful, almost Romantic exploration. The material shows, not for the only time, that whatever Pedernal is, it ain't country.

Recorded in late 2019 at a Brooklyn studio, the album's an accomplishment for Alcorn on many levels. Its stylistically diverse pieces present her as both player and composer, and the material's forays into multiple genres do much to distance the pedal steel guitar from its long-established associations with country and Hawaiian musics. It's not overstating it to say Alcorn has significantly contributed to a growing awareness of the instrument's possibilities. Her collaborations with artists such as Pauline Oliveros, the London Improvisors Orchestra, Nate Wooley, Ingrid Laubrock, and others have done much to allow it to be seen in a different light. As much, however, as one comes away from Pedernal with an expanded appreciation for the instrument, the greater takeaway has to do with the impression of Alcorn herself. Certainly her pedal steel playing is one of the most striking things about the release, but the expansiveness of her vision also registers vividly.

November 2020