Chuck Johnson: The Cinder Grove
Glitterbeat Records

Like Susan Alcorn, Chuck Johnson's redefining the way we think about pedal steel guitar. But whereas her 2020 release Pedernal positions her within a contemporary jazz milieu, the terrain he's operating within on The Cinder Grove is closer to ambient soundscaping; differences aside, both are doing much to divest the instrument of its long-standing association with country. Johnson's follow-up to 2017's Balsams isn't, however, a solo pedal steel recording: he augments it with synthesizers and Yamaha electronic organ, and guests appear too, with Sarah Davachi adding piano to one track and string players Marielle V. Jakobsons (violin), Hilary Lewis (viola, violin) and Crystal Pascucci (cello) contributing to two others. Notes by Johnson for the five tracks likewise reflect the broad scope of the project, with references to Terry Riley and Arvo Pärt cropping up in his texts.

Thematically, he conceived The Cinder Grove as a “suite of requiems for lost places,” with the loss of affordable living and spaces devastated by fire and lost to gentrification specifically identified. But of course the notion of loss also has assumed profound psychological resonance in the wake of loss incurred by the pandemic. Regardless, Johnson aimed with the recording to grant the listener a replenishing space for stressed and weary souls, as well as celebrate the “resilience of the human spirit and the natural world.”

The organ pattern that initiates “Raz-de-Marée" (the same model, incidentally, used on Riley's Persian Surgery Dervishes) establishes immediately a soothing, meditative ground for the crystalline shimmer of the pedal steel to build upon. The instruments' respective tones intertwine to produce a slow, dreamlike dance that's more than a little bewitching, and as organ tones descend against an oscillating background pattern, a clear sense of melancholy is imparted that's wholly in keeping with the album theme. The music may be forlorn, but it's enrapturing too. The Cinder Grove deviates from that mood in “Constellation,” which exchanges solemnity for uplift, first in the form of the pedal steel's swooping arc and secondly via Davachi's spacious piano chords.

Johnson drew for inspiration from Pärt's harmonic language for "Red Branch Bell,” and consistent with that the piece shares certain qualities associated with the Estonian composer's work. With the string players adding to the performance's epic ascension, feelings of reverence and awe are nurtured as the eleven-minute piece advances. Rather than hew to a single developmental line, the material dramatically expands until a breakdown occurs to initiate the process a second time until decompression brings about a satisfying resolution. The string players also appear on “The Laurel,” as lovely and moving a lamentation as anything else on the release.

March 2021