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Sarah Manning – Harmonious Creature

BY PETER BACON on 9 FEBRUARY 2014 • ( 1 )

(Posi-Tone PR8117)

This is the fourth CD from the US alto saxophonist and her second on this label. She has Eyvind Kang on viola, Jonathan Goldberger on guitar, Rene Hart on bass and Jerome Jennings on drums.

It’s both straight down the line, small combo chamber jazz, and also something much fresher in conception. Partly it’s the instrumental line-up and the close, high harmonies that Manning writes for the three melody instruments, partly it’s the breadth of her musical hinterland: she is as interested in Aaron Copland as she is in John Zorn.

In fact, much of this album was written when Manning was working in a studio in the New Hampshire woods which Copland had occupied over 50 years earlier. The opening track is called Copland On Cornelia Street and imagines the composer investigating the late-night New York improvised scene. Grey Dawn, Red Fox is a highly evocative chase through the undergrowth, with saxophone, viola and guitar weaving about one another that Copland might have taken to had he heard it in an improv club.

Manning’s own playing can be keening and strident but always suitably so, and she is always searching fresh melodic paths – listen to the sax/drums section of Floating Bridge, with Jennings pushing hard and the leader thriving on the drive. Overall though, I find her writing and ensemble arranging more compelling than her soloing.

Kang, a frequent Bill Frisell collaborator with a particular penchant for the area where country fiddle meets jazz and classical string playing, is, of course, a delight.

The two non-originals echo the rural nature of the album – Gillian Welch’s I Dream A Highway, which develops into a compelling electro-static noise at thens, and Neil Young’s On The Beach – but if the album was conceived with country loam on the shoes, the downtown city grit is always felt beneath the sole.

A very striking album indeed.

www.downbeat.com

BY DAVIS INMAN
Sarah Manning‚ Harmonious Creature (Posi-Tone)
Alto saxophonist Sarah Manning asserts her individuality on this disc‚ which brings together jazz‚ elements of American folk music and a Neil Young cover. Manning assembled an unusual quintet for this outing—Eyvind Kang‚ viola; Jonathan Goldberger‚ guitar; Rene Hart‚ bass; Jerome Jennings‚ drums—and each player brings their own forward-thinking ideas to the table. On “Copland On Cornelia Street‚” which invokes the American composer Aaron Copland and the New York jazz venue Cornelia Street Cafe‚ Manning and Kang blend their instruments beautifully. Goldberger’s guitar solo here is a rhythmic‚ effects-driven sound sculpture: He sustains a background drone while freely cross-picking and meshing single notes à la Bill Frisell. The album title‚ Harmonious Creature‚ and songs like “Grey Dawn‚ Red Fox” and “Radish Spirit‚” reveal Manning’s affinity for the natural world‚ and this music has an earthy‚ woodsy quality. (She worked on the album in a rural New Hampshire studio‚ where Copland also stayed in 1956.) For the interpretation of Young’s “On The Beach‚” Kang creates squealing‚ bagpipe-like sounds‚ while Jennings bangs out a heavy beat. The group works itself into a fuzzed-out frenzy‚ taking the song to an apex that the overdrive-loving Young would probably dig. Just as trumpeter Dave Douglas used bluegrass vocalist Aoife O’Donovan to great effect on 2012’s Be Still (Greenleaf)‚ Manning’s cover of the folk singer-songwriter Gillian Welch’s “I Dream A Highway” is another example of how jazz musicians can strike gold in the vista of American roots music. Manning offers an enchanting but succinct version of Welch’s expansive‚ 14-minute tune‚ creating a haunting interpretation that lingers in the listener’s mind long after the music stops.

http://steptempest.blogspot.com

The majority of the music alto saxophonist/composer Sarah Manning created for her 4th CD, “Harmonious Creature” (Posi-Tone Records), came from a month-long stay in 2012 at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire.  In fact, the first track of the recording, “Copland On Cornelia Street“, was inspired by the fact she stayed in a cabin that Aaron Copland had used many decades before.  Even though the Colony is in rural New Hampshire, the music on this CD has quite the urban sound.  The electric guitar of Jonathan Goldberger mixes with the hard-edged tones of Eyvind Kang‘s viola and the forceful rhythm section of drummer Jerome Jennings plus bassist Rene Hart to create an often crunchy yet open backdrop for Ms. Manning’s keening and melodious alto saxophone.  Several of the tunes have an unflagging intensity; “Floating Bridge” is a raucous romp, fueled by Jennings’ relentless drumming while the squalling  ballad “On The Beach” (a Neil Young composition) rises higher and higher on the strength of Kang’s moaning viola and Ms. Manning’s strident solo.

On the quieter side, there is an emotionally rich reading of Gillian Welch’s “I Dream A Highway” (the blend of viola and alto saxophone is other-worldly) and the handsome “Three Chords for Jessica” – the shimmering hand percussion of Jennings and Hart’s trance-like bass lines on the latter track are sparkling accompaniment for a engrossing long solo from the saxophonist.

There’s a “country” feel to the rhythm section and Goldberger’s guitar work on “What The Blues Left Behind“, all in support of a rustic melody.  The guitarist lets loose for a hearty solo, setting the stage for the leader to bring the piece back to the rustic melody.   “Grey Dawn, Red Fox” moves stealthily through a number of tempo changes as well as through shifts in sonorities.  Kang’s viola solo really captures the movements of the fox on a solo that is reminiscent of the sound of the late Billy Bang.

The quintet of musicians led by Sarah Manning make this music come alive at every turn.  That is a compliment to the intelligent compositions and arrangements of the leader.  “Harmonious Creature” takes elements of jazz, rock, folk and even country music to create its own unique musical environment, one that beckons the adventurous listener.

http://thejazzbreakfast.com

Sarah Manning – Harmonious Creature

BY PETER BACON on 9 FEBRUARY 2014 • ( 0 )

(Posi-Tone PR8117)

This is the fourth CD from the US alto saxophonist and her second on this label. She has Eyvind Kang on viola, Jonathan Goldberger on guitar, Rene Hart on bass and Jerome Jennings on drums.

It’s both straight down the line, small combo chamber jazz, and also something much fresher in conception. Partly it’s the instrumental line-up and the close, high harmonies that Manning writes for the three melody instruments, partly it’s the breadth of her musical hinterland: she is as interested in Aaron Copland as she is in John Zorn.

In fact, much of this album was written when Manning was working in a studio in the New Hampshire woods which Copland had occupied over 50 years earlier. The opening track is called Copland On Cornelia Street and imagines the composer investigating the late-night New York improvised scene. Grey Dawn, Red Fox is a highly evocative chase through the undergrowth, with saxophone, viola and guitar weaving about one another that Copland might have taken to had he heard it in an improv club.

Manning’s own playing can be keening and strident but always suitably so, and she is always searching fresh melodic paths – listen to the sax/drums section of Floating Bridge, with Jennings pushing hard and the leader thriving on the drive. Overall though, I find her writing and ensemble arranging more compelling than her soloing.

Kang, a frequent Bill Frisell collaborator with a particular penchant for the area where country fiddle meets jazz and classical string playing, is, of course, a delight.

The two non-originals echo the rural nature of the album – Gillian Welch’s I Dream A Highway, which develops into a compelling electro-static noise at thens, and Neil Young’s On The Beach – but if the album was conceived with country loam on the shoes, the downtown city grit is always felt beneath the sole.

A very striking album indeed.

www.birdistheworm.com

Working the line where jazz and folk meet, saxophonist Sarah Manning captures the vibrant energy of the former and the back porch languor of the latter.  Her 2013 release Harmonious Creature touches upon similar motifs as that of Bill Frisell and his Americana Jazz stylings, but where Frisell pretty much ventures out of jazz territory and into the folk countryside, Manning’s music tends to stray more often on the post-bop side of that borderline.

Your album personnel:  Sarah Manning (alto sax), Eyvind Kang (viola),Jonathan Goldberger (guitar), Rene Hart (bass), and Jerome Jennings (drums).

And Manning does play a game of hopscotch down that jazz-folk border… with one foot planted firmly on one side of the land at any one time and the other foot suspended above the opposite genre.  Opening track “Copeland On Cornelia Street” rides the charming squiggles of melody from Manning’s sax and Kang’s viola into a waltz-like motion, then changing partners and letting Hart take over while Manning develops the melody into something fiercer and wilder.  “Tune of Cats” begins with a similar mode, sax piping up with warm notes for viola to leap from one to the other, while Goldberger and Jennings work a more standard repertoire as the rhythm section.  Bassist Hart, again, contributes a resounding dialog in the deeper registers, providing an earthy soulfulness to complement Manning’s fiery solo.

When Manning’s crew plants their feet down on the post-bop side of the line, they do it with authority.  The up-tempo “Floating Bridge” brings the heat, and Manning’s sax solo spreads like wildfire.  “Three Chords for Jessica,” actually, taps a moodier sound more reminiscent of the folk song approach, but Manning lights the song up on saxophone, riding the crest of a slowly building intensity from the other quintet members.  And the slow blues of “What the Blues Left Behind” brings a nicely defined melody on sax, though it’s the seaside ease of guitar that cements the heart of this song in place.

“I Dream a Highway” and “Radish Spirit” go a long way to showing how the quintet doesn’t need to turn up the temperature to get a rise out of the music.  The former has a shimmering melody, glimmering with moodiness and effects, whereas the latter develops a gentle sway that holds the song in place no matter how volatile a solo might become.  And “Grey Dawn, Red Fox” is one of those rare times when the quintet has a foot planted squarely in both jazz and folk territories at the same time.

The notable presence of violist Eyvind Kang can’t be overlooked.  His contributions to albums by Bill Frisell and Jenny Scheinmann, artists who have similarly found a home on the border between jazz and folk, has Kang right at home on this kind of session.  His ability to modulate seamlessly between expressions of the two genres, synthesizing the commonalities while simultaneously accentuating the intrigue of the differences, goes a long way to aiding in the success of this recording.

Just a very enjoyable album, one that crackles with life while retaining a peacefulness that makes for a winning demeanor.

http://lucidculture.wordpress.com

Sarah Manning’s Quintet Airs Out a Great Album’s Worth of Tunes at I-Beam

When she was invited up to the McDowell Colony last year to compose, alto saxophonist Sarah Manning was not in a good place, she alluded between songs at her show Saturday night at I-Beam. But her time in the New Hampshire woods turned out to be exactly what she needed to reboot, and she showed off several of the kinetic, sometimes achingly intense compositions she’d come up with there, taken from her brilliant new album Harmonious Creature. Onstage, Manning’s tone is less brassy and more nuanced than it tends to be in the studio; attackwise, she went from a wail to a wisp and often back up again, precise and purposeful. For whatever reason, maybe because she has an album release show coming up at 8:30 PM on Feb 20 at Cornelia St. Cafe, this gig was more about tunes than pyrotechnics or jousting.

Bassist Rene Hart’s hypnotic, pulsing circular lines often held the center as drummer Allison Miller ornamented the songs with a misterioso, John Hollenbeck-like pointillism. What’s it like to watch Miller play quietly? Infrequent, let’s say – but she finally hit a long cyclotron rumble which was just plain classic, and worth the price of admission all by itself. Meanwhile, guitarist Jonathan Goldberger and violist Fung Chern Hwei alternated between resonant atmospherics and incisive solo passages. Goldberger used his sustain pedals for almost clarinet-like tone that built with the viola to a magical, enveloping mist on the night’s elegantly waltzing opening number, Copland on Cornelia St. Then Manning led the band with a hypercaffeinated drive through the bitingly catchy Don’t Answer to the Question.

Grey Dawn Red Fox worked a similar dynamic, Miller’s insistent implied clave paired with Manning’s dancing lines against a lingering grey-sky backdrop. Tune of Cats saw Manning airing out her lower register, Miller matching her unease, throwing elbows everywhere versus the rest of the band’s resolute calm. Thy worked a tight push-pull on the acerbic Radish Spirit and then backed away through a considerably more acidic reworking of Neil Young’s On the Beach. The enigmatic, brooding Three Chords for Jessica was a highlight, as was the second set’s closing number, What the Blues Left Behind. Manning explained it as an illustration of the flush of contentment – hopefully without your ears ringing too hard – that you get after a good set or a good night watching somebody play one. The long series of false endings at the end wound up this eclectic and intriguing evening on an aptly reflective note.

http://jazzandblues.blogspot.com

Sarah Manning is an alto saxophonist and composer, whose new album, Harmonious Creature features her in the company of Eyvind Kang on viola, Jonathan Goldberger on guitar, Rene Hart on bass and Jerome Jennings on drums. The album was recorded in Brooklyn about one year ago and consists of several original compositions, and some interesting covers, particularly “On The Beach,” the title track of one of Neil Young’s finest and most neglected albums. Under Manning’s control, the song is alternatively brooding and scalding, allowing the musicians to really stretch out and play with a lot of room for textural development. Some of the tracks develop a dreamy feel like the Gillian Welch and David Rawlings country folk song “I Dream A Highway” and the opening original song “Copeland on Cornelia Street.” where the circular patterns for band members slowly evolve into improvised sections. “Floating Bridge” heads in the opposite direction developing an aggressive attack for three short inspiring minutes. “Don’t Answer the Question” engages the full band in developing a fast and potent theme and then sparking off improvised sections from it. The use of viola and guitar on the album offer a larger range of emotions to draw from and Manning succeeds admirably as a composer and arranger in developing her musical vision to match the instrumentation and the players.

http://lucidculture.wordpress.com

Sarah Manning is to the alto sax what JD Allen is to the tenor: even in a world of rugged individualists, she stands out. Lots of artists doll themselves up, tone themselves down and smile sweetly for the camera for an album cover shot. Manning scowls at you from the inside of the cd booklet for her new Posi-tone album, Harmonious Creature. Her bright, defenestrating, Jackie McLean-esque tone, angst-fueled crescendos and stunningly uneasy tunesmithing also set her a step ahead of the pack. Her previous 2010 Posi-Tone release, Dandelion Clock, was that year’s underrated gem. It may be early in the year, but her new album Harmonious Creature threatens to be the best of 2014. Her chromatically-fueled edge brings to mind Kenny Garrett; her moody compositions compare with Garrett and Allen as well. This new quintet session is an ambitious and slashingly successful move into the increasingly crowded chamber jazz arena with Eyvind Kang on viola, Jonathan Goldberger on guitar, Rene Hart on bass and Jerome Jennings on drums. Manning is playing the album release show at I-Beam at 8 PM on Jan 25 with a slightly altered lineup featuring the reliably electrifying Alli Miller on drums.

The opening track, Copland On Cornelia Street, starts as stately waltz, brings the guitar in, lingers on the turnaround and then Manning works some morose magic over Goldberger’s brooding resonance. It picks up with a sunbaked Goldberger solo over a dancing, whirling rhythm. Did Aaron Copland find his epiphany in the West Village? He was a Queens guy – it’s not out of the question.

Tune Of Cats echoes a famous Coltrane riff before the group takes it over Jennings’ careful, tumbling pulse, Manning’s utterly casual phrasing contrasting with the relentless intensity of the melody, her tone more smoky than usual. Floating Bridge, an austerely bright jazz waltz, has Kang echoing Manning’s kinetic lines, the bandleader teasing the listener with flitting motives over Jennings’ imperturbible washes….and then sax and viola go back at it.

Reharmonized jazz versions of rock and country tunes can leave you gasping for oxygen, but Manning’s cover of Gillian Welch’s I Dream A Highway stakes out atmospheric, Frisellian big-sky territory. Goldberger’s pointillisms against gently unfolding sax and viola fill the vast expanse up to a ridiculously psychedelic, ambient outro that pans the speakers. Later in the album, they take a similar approach to Neil Young’s On the Beach, but at a glacial tempo that Manning finally cuts loose and blasts straight through once the final “get out of town” verse hits, the band following her searing lead to the point where any atttempt to get back into ballad mode would be pointless.

The naturalistic Grey Dawn, Red Fox blends allusions to the baroque and simmering exchanges of voices into a precarious narrative that grows more anthemic as it shifts course: this animal is on the lookout for something far more dangerous. If Manning is to be believed, the Radish Spirit guards its ground closely, with a tight, somewhat frosty cameraderie from the whole group, Manning and Goldberger taking it into the shadows before Hart rises to the foreground and pulls it back. The enigmatically titled Three Chords For Jessica emerges from Hart’s solo chromatics to a haunting, elegaic, gorgeously Middle Eastern-tinged grey-sky theme. Don’t Answer To The Question returns to waltz tempo with some understatedly wicked push-pull between Goldberger, Jennings and Kang. The album ends with a counterintuitively warm guitar feature, What the Blues Left Behind.