Ben Verdery: Scenes from Ellis Island
Panoramic Recordings
While not an exhaustive portrait, Scenes from Ellis Island nevertheless presents an in-depth account of Ben Verdery (b. 1955) as guitarist, conceptualist, and composer. In containing multiple solo performances, the hour-long recording presents ample evidence of his prowess on the instrument, but it also benefits from appearances by beatboxer Mark Martin, West African singer Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté, cellist Guilherme Nardelli Monegatto, and fellow guitarist Simon Powis. Verdery's virtuosity helps distinguish the five performances, which makes for a consistently engrossing recording, regardless of whether he appears alone or with guests. The listener derives ample satisfaction in witnessing a wholly engaged musician penetrating deeply into the music. Scenes from Ellis Island is hardly Verdery's first album; in fact, he's issue more than fifteen and has worked with Andy Summers, Frederic Hand (one of Verdery's guitar teachers), and Leo Kottke, among others. A guitar professor at the Yale School of Music since 1985, Verdery still studies with his mentor Anthony Newman and receives coaching from another mentor, Seymour Bernstein.
True to the American spirit associated with the release's title track, the opening What He Said draws from gospel, the guitarist incorporating into the material the qualities of exuberance, soulfulness, and spontaneity characteristic of the form, and also Lyle Lovett, Verdery borrowing a piano part from the song “Church.” Executed in a call-and-response style with the leader joined by Powis, the piece, rich in picking, strumming, and interlocking patterns, immediately captivates when it leaps from the gate with an energized, almost bluegrass-inflected intro, after which a short lament presents sensitive handling of the material before an exuberant reprise of the opening attack.
Originally written for Scottish guitarist David Russell, the two-part Now and Ever features Verdery alone, its opening movement initially meditative and then rhapsodic and the second considerably more active, the guitarist dazzling with lightning-fast voicings and delicate tremolo and generating permutations by using harmonics as core pitches around which others constellate. In this first of two solo presentations, he holds the listener's attention unflaggingly with techniques that range widely. The second, the rain falls equally on all things, a fantasy, was inspired by Franz Schubert's Nachtstück and explores for thirteen minutes the panoramic wealth of possibilities the guitar offers. Having introduced the piece with percussive sounds and bluesy figures, Verdery subjects the emergent motivic material to multiple treatments, lyrically musing on it at one moment and then venturing through pedal point, pizzicato, and glissando sequences.
Featuring text taken from the author's book on linguistics, From Aristotle is a four-movement co-composition between Verdery and Mark Martin, the latter a versatile mixed-vocal artist who adds voice-generated wind sounds, Tuvan throat singing, beat boxing, and straight vocal delivery to his partner's sympathetic guitar contributions. While Martin's singing voice isn't distinguished, the variety of extended vocal techniques he brings to the presentation does impress; the respective drum'n'bass and funk grooves he produces with his voice in “A Verb” and “The Wineless Cup,” for instance, are also striking emulations.
Of the three pieces featuring guests, it's the multi-part, fourteen-minute title epic that stands out most, however. Powis joins Verdery again, but this time the two are augmented by cellist Monegatto and vocalist Diabate, the latter, a jelimuso (female jeli or ‘griot') from Mali, in particular doing much to make the performance memorable. Commissioned by a Staten Island high school music program, Scenes from Ellis Island was inspired by a trip Verdery took to the Ellis Island Museum where he was moved by photos capturing the hardship and perseverance those new to America endure in addition to the hopes and dreams they carry for their futures. Following a dignified intro by the guitars, the pointillistic minimalist style of the opening gradually segues into a chordal section over which an impassioned Diabaté makes her first soulful entrance. The brief vocal section gives way to, first, a tranquil guitar interlude, then aggressive glissando chords and ascending swirls of unpitched plucks. A pre-recorded chorus of voices speaking in various languages surfaces, their babble symbolizing New York's ethnic diversity, after which the guitars return accompanied by a lyrical cello solo and a second, this time improvised (plus multi-tracked) statement by Diabaté in her native language, Bamana, to bring the piece and album to a rousing finale. As much of a show-stopper as Scenes from Ellis Island certifiably is, it's hardly the only high point on the release and neither is it the only piece that recommends it.March 2020