John Daversa Quintet's Cuarantena

My latest Vinyl Anachronist music review is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. You can read it here.

Felipe Salles' The New Immigrant Experience

My latest Vinyl Anachronist music review is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. You can read it here.

Justin Morell's Concerto for Guitar and Jazz Orchestra

If you look at those first three words, concerto for guitar, you might start thinking about something from Rodrigo or Vivaldi. At least I did. Then I noticed the word "jazz" twice on the cover and instantly thought of big band jazz. Then I noticed John Daversa's name and I remembered his release from earlier in the year, American Dreamers: Voices of Hope, Music of Freedom which right now is nominated for a Grammy. Finally, I considered the phrase jazz orchestra and how that sometimes means something else, something that occupies the space between jazz and classical. Think George Gershwin.

This concerto heads off on another spur, however, a sound that's far more lush and sultry than garden variety big band jazz. Composer Justin Morell keeps the arrangement centered on fluid, slowly evolving short cuts from one genre to the other, with themes tight enough so you won't notice the shifts until they've been locked in place for a minute or so. This gentle swell of music is an effective background for Adam Rogers' guitar, which is precise and sometimes difficult but never in a way that doesn't serve the melody. He sits forward, much closer to the listener, and it's clear that he's the focus--which obviously makes perfect sense for a concerto.

As we learned from American Dreamers, Daversa has a way of gliding between ideas in a modern approach to the arrangements. Here he is directing the Frost Concert Jazz Band from Morell's own arrangements, and suddenly you hear it, something you've heard before. Was that a little Mozart there? Maybe some Haydn? Wait just a minute--that's Beethoven. Then you notice that the concerto is set up exactly like a concerto, with three movements. That shouldn't have been a surprise to me, but it was. That's when you realize you have to stick the two halves together, all that guitar bouncing off yet another beefy horn section and sounding like big band jazz in every conceivable way, and then suddenly you hear the themes and see the structures and now you're nowhere near big band jazz.

Or, you can just read the liner notes which detail how this concerto was brought to life. Morell, in addition to being an Assistant Professor of Music at Lebanon Valley College, has already recorded six albums. He kept coming back to this idea of using classical concerto "language" in a jazz composition. This is daunting enough, but Morell also dipped into his past and implemented Brazilian rhythms and backbeat grooves to push the concerto even further into the spotlight. If this sounds like heady, cerebral stuff that only seasoned musicians will understand, it's not. Remember that I started off with the words sultry and lush to describe this album. It's a complex sound that will appeal to different people for different reasons, and that's why it's so good.

John Daversa Big Band's American Dreamers: Voices of Hope, Music of Freedom

It's not often that you can call a big band jazz recording timely or topical, but here we are with American Dreamers, a project from John Daversa's Big Band that brings together DACA artists who can also play musical instruments and otherwise perform within a big band setting. Daversa worked with several non-profit immigrant organizations and was able to locate 53 Dreamers in 17 states, children of immigrants from such countries as Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Nigeria, Pakistan and even Canada. American Dreamers, in its final form, is a busy, ambitious mixture of songs chosen by the Dreamers, songs such as "Living In America," "Immigrant Song," "Stars and Stripes Forever" and "America" from West Side Story, all interspersed with stories of growing up in America from the Dreamers themselves.

As you can guess, this is a very unique big band recording, and not just because of the themes. Musically, Daversa's band is willing to take all kinds of crazy risks. You probably noticed that I mentioned "Immigrant Song"--yes, we're talking about the Led Zeppelin song, and it blends the big band sound with lots of churning, electric guitars and--wait for it--sections of pure hip-hop. It's wonderful and exciting and like nothing you've heard. In other tracks these dreamers perform musical and vocal solos, complex percussion grooves, spoken word poetry and more rapping. Did I say this project was ambitious?

The beating heart of this album, however, is the stories. One Dreamer talks of earning a university scholarship and being unable to take advantage of it because of his immigration status. Another explains that she became a drummer and percussionist because it helped to alleviate her stress about her immigration status. Another describes how her family came to America to get medical help for her sister. These stories are not casually told, but conveyed with heart and emotion.

"Music has always been tied to the fight for justice." This quote from U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, along with another from Senator Lindsey Graham, are featured prominently on the back cover of American Dreamers, and that provides the momentum for the album, the call to action. To appropriate an old musical cliche, Daversa's big band plays with feeling, but it's more real and sincere than usual. This album could have been shrouded in earnestness, but the skill and cohesiveness of these arrangements brings the cause to another level, one that should garner significant attention once the word gets out. Listening to American Dreamers also begs the question: why don't they take this on the road? Put it on Broadway! Keep fighting the fight.