Jihye Lee Orchestra: Infinite Connections
Motéma Music

Jihye Lee drew upon profound personal experiences to create her latest album Infinite Connections. Co-produced by her and Darcy James Argue, Lee's follow-up to the critically lauded Daring Mind emerges follows two critical life events, the death of her dementia-stricken grandmother in 2022 and the coma that struck her mother thereafter. As Lee wrote the material her ensemble would record, she couldn't help but reflect on family history and the cultural contexts within which it developed. Related thoughts about identity, womanhood, ancestry, and the cycles of nature also entered into Lee's thought processes. A greater awareness of the connections between her and her mother crystallized, which prompted the realization that her mother had had the same with her own, and so on through countless generations.

The integration of Korean folk elements into a Western music context also became a natural outgrowth of that immersion as the writing of new material advanced. The result is witnessed in the album's nine compositions, each of which works a traditional Korean rhythm into its structure. What makes Lee's music so compelling is its melding of that historical aspect with the dynamic music she creates as a contemporary jazz composer, arranger, and conductor. While her arranging generally hews to tradition, her writing is unique, though it could hardly be otherwise when it comes from a Korean-born artist who's fusing the sounds of her homeland with the vibrant energy of an American jazz orchestra.

Ever restless, intricately woven, and unpredictable, Lee's music sounds like no one's but hers. That it is impossible to know where a composition is leading is one of the most exciting things about it, and the outcome is music that's never less than riveting. Her choices about timbre, texture, rhythm, dynamics, melody, and harmony are intensely personal and give her music its stamp. Choosing to have Argue by her side was a brilliant move for freeing her to focus on conducting the players and guiding them through their paces. Adding to the orchestra's impact, Lee added trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire as a guest soloist on two tracks to give the music added impact. Many of the players' names will be familiar to followers of the contemporary jazz scene, among them woodwinds players David Pietro and Jason Rigby, trumpeter David Smith, trombonist Nick Grinder, guitarist Alex Goodman, pianist Adam Birnbaum, and percussionist Keita Ogawa, the latter of Snarky Puppy fame.

The ever-tight tag-team of bassist Matt Clohesy and drummer Jared Schonig introduces the first track “Surrender” with a subtly funky pulse before the orchestra's sections bring the material to a muscular broil. As furious cross-currents of horns and woodwinds swell alongside, Akinmusire imposes himself with a solo brimming with imagination and technical savvy. As rhythmically enticing as the opener, “We Are All From the Same Stream” maintains the intensity level for an embracing statement whose sultry swing trombonist Alan Ferber and tenor saxophonist Jason Rigby straddle as soloists.

Offsetting high-energy pieces are slower, contemplative ones. The portentous “Karma” broods heavily before springing into action with a roiling percussive base, while ambient guitar textures and muted horns add to the mysterious atmosphere Akinmusire and the ensemble cultivate in “You Are My Universe.” Titled in reference to Lee's grandmother, who came into the world as a Korean orphan and married as a teenager to avoid getting pulled into a sex trade that targeted parentless children, the understandably ponderous “Born in 1935” illustrates the delicacy of which Lee is capable. After a tapestry of woodwinds and horns evokes the hope and promise of youth, darker tonalities seep into the material, with alto saxophonist David Pietro expertly carving a path through Lee's turbulent landscape.

Elsewhere, “Eight Letters” exudes a bit of a cool, Lalo Schifrin-like swagger while also eliciting a biting solo from Goodman, and baritone saxophonist Carl Maraghi elevates “Nowhere Home” with a powerful turn. “In the Darkest Night” slowly morphs from a rubato meditation into a sultry, rhythmically infectious setting enlivened by a radiant contribution from Birnbaum. At album's end, Ogawa's percussion amplifies the Korean dimension of “Crossing the River of Grace” just as trumpet soloist David Smith does the same for its Western side.

One presumes Lee's players derive great satisfaction from her charts when everyone is engaged and solo spots are distributed generously. It's hard to believe she identified as a singer-songwriter during an earlier time in South Korea when Daring Mind and Infinite Connections show how far she's come. Her decision to uproot to the United States, study at the Berklee College of Music (where she won the Duke Ellington Award in composition twice), and eventually move to New York City to initiate her professional career as a jazz artist were pivotal, life-changing choices that are now reaping significant rewards.

June 2024