If you talk to creative musicians, they will tell you how much they hate having their music categorized. Most musicians, from the folks playing in a bar down the street to those at Carnegie Hall, are the product of a thousand influences. Words like “jazz” or “rock” or “classical” are for marketers or critics. Musicians just want to play and compose.
Matt Ulery is a composer and bass player from Chicago. His resume and his current record company suggest that he comes from the jazz world: he has played with Kurt Rosenwinkel, Patricia Barber, and Fareed Haque, among many others, and he currently releases his music on Greenleaf, the imprint created by Dave Douglas, the jazz trumpeter and leader.
And In the Ivory contains improvising, so maybe that makes it “jazz” enough for many folks. There are other elements of it that might comfortably nestle it into jazz, such as a drum kit, a singer in Grazyna Auguscik who phrases loosely and naturally in a jazz tradition, and a clear affection for poly-rhythms.
But there are just as many elements of In the Ivory that mark it as coming from and living as something else. And something unbounded, something wonderful. The recording primarily features playing by a modern classical/new music ensemble from Chicago called eighth blackbird that, on this recording, constitutes a string quartet, a pair of woodwinds, and percussion. Most of the music here is through-composed. And the themes tend to sound more European than blues-based, for what it’s worth.
But leave the categories aside, please. Some of the themes do draw on the blues. And Auguscik sings with traditions beyond jazz shining through. And there are sections of improvisation that move with daring but are accompanied by written string parts that ache with feeling.
In the Ivory is one of the glorious faces of musical diversity in the current scene. Listening to its airy blend of genres is one thing, but my affection for it comes from a sense that this is a very particular portrait of its composer and is sensibility. Everything in this long suite of compositions (80 minutes on two compact discs) flows together with a sense of connection.
My experience of listening to the first four tracks, for example, is that of hearing a balanced suite. The fourth piece, “Write It On the Wall”, begins with a set of harmonically intriguing piano arpeggios over which Auguscik sings a gentle theme that is gradually joined by the ensemble. This melody moves with melancholy confidence through a set of repetitions that gradually become more elaborate, climaxing in the ensemble taking the lead in an orchestral wall of sound. Like a classical work, the piece passes the theme and its variations to various different voices in the band. When the lyric returns fully, it is set over a different accompaniment, a burbling minimalist sound with marimba/piano/woodwinds playing a rippling set of gentle poly-rhythms. It is gorgeous.
All of the techniques present in “Write It On the Wall”, however, were already planted in my ears by the three compositions that preceded it in my listening. “Gave Proof” uses that burbling minimalism (including repeating piano arpeggio figures) as a bed for a melancholy melody by strings and then clarinet, with variations on this format moving into different rhythm feelings. The vocal is introduced with the next song, “There’s a Reason and a Thousand Ways”, with a lush string arrangement creating something like a cross between an art song and a Joni Mitchell travelogue, with the percolation of percussion and flute in the last minutes bringing back the minimalism and bringing a chill to your spine akin to a spring sunrise. Track three, “Mary Shelley”, places the ensemble at the service of a strong theme, developing it with increasing confidence and rhythmic flow until Rob Clearfield takes an improvised solo. The song finishes with the rich harmonies and swinging flow of jazz, finally delivering us to “Write It On the Wall”, which seems like a clear culmination.
There are connections and through-lines like this all over In the Ivory, really too many to recount and explain here. It is more important to say that this heady blend of melody and rhythm, invention and surprise, is a pungent argument against the death of classical music, against any notion that music in the tradition of, say, Bartok and John Adams doesn’t have a shot at our ears any more. There are rich veins of composition here, and there dis nothing boring or old-fashioned about it.
But it’s equally important to say that Ulery’s music gives the lie to the notion that jazz can’t connect to non-aficionado ears or that pop music is all just dumb love songs. “The Farm”, which features lovely singing by Sarah Marie Young, begins as an orchestrally set folk song, but it moves into becoming a funky jazz vehicle that grooves with the thump and drive of something by Robert Glasper. “Sweet Bitter” is a thrilling but gentle improvising vehicle for violin, bass, and drums, a daring slice of jazz that seems somehow like chamber music.
The larger impression of Matt Ulery’s music is that it comes from the heart and mind of a young musician who grew up with access to a huge swath of American music in every style and saw no reason to narrow his ambitions, but who also loves melody. There is something direct and unpretentious about every one of the compositions on In the Ivory, as complex as it all can become. More and more musicians of Ulery’s generation are doing this, ripping away from listeners the comfort of knowing the style they’re about to hear but granting listeners something even better as substitute: the adventure of new music that never flags in interest, enjoyment, or diversity.
One last example: the song “Visceral” on the second disc, which is a gorgeous waltz theme with a melody that won’t stop giving lyrical pleasure. After the first vocal statement, the chamber ensemble plays a spritely variation, quickly handing off duets to Clearfield, Ulery’s acoustic bass, and Jon Deitmeyer on drums. Now it’s jazz, with the pianist’s clusters and rhapsodic lines first buoyed by the ensemble and then set loose over the rhythm section alone to let the fire grow hotter. Auguscik returns to the song at the end, the rhythm more urgent now, the ensemble more fully a part of the sound, something truly complete for you to hear.
Every measure of In the Ivory offers this kind of invention and joy. It is a wealth of musicality, never less than fully felt, never seeming like a clone of other music, yet coming from the many traditions that feed the musical imagination. Wooo, it’s good.