Way North: New Dreams, Old Stories
Roots2Boot Recordings
Way North combines three Canadians and a New Yorker, with trumpeter Rebecca Hennessy and bassist Michael Herring hailing from Toronto and saxophonist Petr Cancura and American drummer Richie Barshay Ottawa and Northampton, Massachusetts, respectively. Yet while the band name emphasizes a single point on the compass, the quartet casts its musical gaze in multiple directions. On an album featuring compositions and arrangements by all four, New Dreams, Old Stories includes jazz, folk, blues, a Venezuelan traditional, a cover of Jackie McLean's “Dig,” and material that just might make you want to climb aboard the next flight to New Orleans. It can't be a coincidence either that its third album inverts the name of Old and New Dreams, the renowned quartet featuring Ornette Coleman alumni. After all, at least one track could pass for an homage to the earlier model and another references bassist Charlie Haden in its title. Of course the album title also highlights the quartet's affection for both longstanding traditions and new directions.
There's much to recommend this equal-opportunity outfit and the album, but perhaps the most appealing thing about it is diversity when each of its dozen tracks inhabits a stylistic world separate from the others. The performances, assured in delivery and often celebratory in tone, reflect a broad array of genre interests and a strong rapport between the participants; here are four people who clearly enjoy playing together. With variety clearly at the top of the agenda, New Dreams, Old Stories kicks off with the regular show opener “Play,” an enticingly melodic and breezy exercise by Hennessy; even more New Orleans-flavoured is Cancura's “I'm Here to Stay,” this one delivered at a faster clip. A vestige of African folk seeps into his alluring vamp “New Dreams, Old Stories,” the quality becoming even more pronounced when the quartet takes to singing the rousing folk melody. As appealing is Barshay's arrangement of the singing “Pajarillo Verde,” a Venezuelan folk song made famous by singer Soledad Bravo.
Herring's “Château Gonflable” seemingly nods in Ornette's direction with a tune that could have fit cozily on either of his first albums, Something Else!!!! and Tomorrow Is the Question!, without anyone raising an eyebrow. As a title it's a mouthful, but the bassist's delicate ballad “If Charlie Haden couldn't write a song to bring world peace … what hope is there for me?” is no less lovely for being so, and no cut better captures the recording's fun vibe than Hennessy's “Dr Good,” a New Orleans-styled romp the band digs into instrumentally and vocally (“Oh, my love, I can't keep my eyes off of you, dear / Let's hope this never ends”). The laid-back “Come Over to Our House” is so inviting in its vocal entreaty, it just might have listeners knocking on Herring and Hennessy's front door. The partners also grab the album's closing slot with the sweetly romantic ballad “When You Say Goodnight to Me.”
Throughout the disc, her suave horn partners effectively with Cancura's bluesy bluster, while Herring and Barshay are an unfailingly responsive tag-team. Yet while the four are seriously good as soloists and ensemble players, the tone of the album isn't sober but instead carefree and joyful. That makes the experience of listening to it all the more enjoyable, and one comes away from the recording feeling good for having spent an hour in such congenial company.May 2022