Dawn

AMG Review of Dawn

Thom Jurek
All Music Guide

When Build an Ark, the fine multi-generational, transcultural, multi-disciplinary Los Angeles jazz and soul musician's collective, released Peace with Every Step back in 2004, it got notices overseas and in the home territories on the West Coast, but by and large it entered a void. Those who did hear it were struck by its originality, warmth, emotion, and sophistication; those who didn't missed out. Luckily that set, released on the tiny Kindred Spirit imprint, wasn't a one-off. Dawn is the group's sophomore full-length on the excellent Shaman's Work label. Co-founded and directed by Carlos Nińo and Adam Rudolph, the collective hasn't lost any of its core members, and if anything is larger, it's the talent in the lineup, which contains some ace veterans in Rudolph, spiritual jazz vocalist Dwight Trible, and trombonist Phil Ranelin, violist, composer, and arranger Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Nińo, drummers Alan Lightner, Dexter Story, and Harris Eisenstadt, percussionists Derf Reklaw-Raheem and Andres Renteria (in addition to Rudolph), bassists Trevor Ware (bowed), Nick Rosen and Nedra Wheeler, percussionist, saxophonist and flutist Joshua Spiegelman, guitarist Damon Aaron, percussionist Munyungo Jackson, harpist Rebekah Raff, bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck, pianist and Wurlitzer organist Nate Morgan, cellist Peter Jacobson, and vocalists Gaby Hernandez, Sheila Govindarajan, and Tracey Hart. What do they sound like? Like the title of the album, the first kiss of the sun as it emerges from the night sky. They owe the great spiritual jazz traditions built by labels like Tribe, Strata East, and Impulse, but they sound like no one but themselves. Though many of these players come from outside the jazz tradition, and indeed those from it come from the outer edges like Trible, who was with Archie Shepp and Horace Tapscott, and Ranelin, a co-founder of Tribe and session man extraordinaire. That said, this music is decidedly inside. It's inside the human heart whether they are performing Pharoah Sanders' "Healing Song" or Atwood-Ferguson's "Morning Glory." Vocalists, pianos, bass, percussion, guitars, harps, and the like function as a whole. This is not a blowing session with the individual members investigating the outer realms and their own virtuosity at exploring it. This is a band that plays like a band and explores interiors, the inside spaces in the mind and heart and breath. The music is gentle but far from sleepy. It is loaded with glorious energy, percolating, swinging, moving, breathing, and finger-popping grooves. Check the gorgeous bluesy entrance of "In Her Smile" written by Rosen, where Jacobson's cello and Atwood-Ferguson's viola play counter harmony, and Joey Dosik's alto evokes the smoky sound of Ben Webster's tenor as a melody unfolds itself in the center. OnSanders' "You Yourself Are the Key to the Universe," Atwood-Ferguson's viola and Spiegelman's flutes hover through Ware's bowed bass, Rosen's pizzicato bass, and Jacobson's cello as Story holds all that low end in the grip of his brushes and it all begins to hover before moving into space.

This music feels as natural as breathing no matter who is playing, even when Atwood-Ferguson evokes the pre-ig-band jazz balladry of the early '30s alongside the classical tradition on "Heaven" with Renteria playing cymbals, piano, Wurlitzer, viola, cello, harp and bassoon. But it's most readily apparent when Trible soars into action on "Healing Song" and the title cut, when his gorgeous spirit-filled croon reaches its upper and lower registers and feels like the bell of a horn telling a secret truth. (Nothing against other jazz singers, but Trible is a true original; he's invented a style of his own that lends itself equally well to improvisation and the musicality of any scale or culture, and its quality is healthy and clean -- it is like the sound of God.) The opening theme "Sunshine" plays Reklaw-Raheem's congas, Atwood-Ferguson's viola, Story's shimmering kit work, Morgan's piano, and Wheeler's bass exchanging with one another in a Latin groove. Big Black makes an appearance as vocalist on his stunning composition "Love, Sweet Like Sugar Cane" and the way Rudolph's shakers lithely support that beautiful baritone voice is otherworldly; the viola, drums, and basslines intertwine with the harp to offer another meditation on bliss before the deep rhythm takes over on the title track where Morgan's piano and Wurlitzer lay out the deep soul fire groove funky bassline by Wheeler, and a chorus of vocalists lay out the message, in the cut, with popping drum breaks played by Story as Reklaw-Raheem's congas work up a storm and Atwood-Ferguson, a classical musician, soars around the fringes before turning down the volume and moving into something as Pan-Asian as Fred Hoan's beautiful "Butterfly Lover's Song." The centerpieces of the album are the two tracks called "River Run" and "When Ancestors Speak." The former written by Rudolph features him on kalimba and gembre, Lightner on shakers and steel pans, Jackson on balaphone, a pair of bamboo flutes played by Spiegelman and Buzzy Jones, and smoking kit work by Eisenstadt that sets up the latter cut. Here, Trible once more moans and calls out into the ether for the spirits to return; he becomes their voice as it is sustained by Raff's harp. The viola becomes the voice that answers Trible, and calls him forth once more from a primeval time. A slew of percussion instruments -- played by Avotcja, Big Black, and Jackson -- with a skeletal bassline played on the cello by Jacobson, and a harp that floats around the talking drums and bell tree are the sounds of time and space as they move and shift, always in harmony with one another. The vocal interplay between Trible and all the singers here, including Angela Estrada, is enclosed in a circle provided by guitar, percussion, piano, strings, and bass.

The bottom line is that this ensemble in all its various configurations plays like a whole entity, a single band on many instruments with many voices, all focused on one thing: the healing force of music itself. Everyone in this band is present in these recordings, fully and instinctively in line with one another. And if there is less individual "blowing," so be it; there's been too much of that for the last decade anyway. This is a music that can only be called jazz because it relies on the power of improvisers to play in an ensemble and create the kinetic energy to make these compositions work. Producer Nińo is an instinctive member of this group; he understands clarity as well as communication and trust, he doesn't try to get a sound, he lets the sound of this group dictate to him what's needed. Ultimately, Dawn is a new direction for jazz. It's soulful, utterly creative and limitless in its vision, and of a single mind in performance. The only thing better than hearing this record would be seeing these folks lay it down on a stage -- they've drawn raves from critics and crowds alike whenever they play. The collective known as Build an Ark re-create an impressively varied body of work, one that restores the soul, offers the mind a place to settle, and still gets down in the bone and marrow to let the groove energy present itself unfettered. Dawn gets a solid vote for one of the best recordings of 2007 for its sheer musicality and accessibility (all without engaging clichés of any kind) as well as its fearlessness in trying to come up with something truly new in the world of jazz. Finally, we have a new vision of jazz that has been liberated -- without anger or bitterness of any kind -- from the formal institutions that would make it a museum piece. It takes pride in its origins, and its history, because it was the first American music to embrace all world music. Build an Ark's Dawn is truly the first moment of a brand new day. Very highly recommended.