Saxophonist Brodie West's music is full of quiet surprises
The artist’s quintet comes to the Ironworks on November 2, as part of the Coastal Jazz and Blues Society’s IronFest V weekend
The Brodie West Quintet.
Coastal Jazz & Blues Society presents the Brodie West Quintet with Kevin Romain’s Salience Network on November 2 at the Ironworks as part of IronFest V
I’VE GOT TO admit that I spent more than a few minutes puzzling over the title of the Brodie West Quintet’s latest LP, Meadow of Dreams. Yes, opening track “Entrainment” is a nocturne of sorts, a chiaroscuro study in tension with spooky undertones. So the dreams are covered, but they’re urban dreams. The only really bucolic moments on the record come at the end, with the title track sounding appropriately verdant and restful.
Odd.
But after playing Meadow of Dreams several times in succession—which, admittedly, was no hardship—it struck me that this is a metaphorical meadow, in that there’s a lot more going on under the surface than is immediately apparent. Like a real-life grassland ecosystem, it’s dependent on deep roots and a weave of mycelial connections. Saxophonist West’s music doesn’t make sudden topographical leaps, yet it’s full of quiet surprises, the kind that come only from musicians who love to play together and love to listen to each other, too.
As might be expected, the double-drummer format allows West, as the primary composer, to access a broader rhythmic palette than would otherwise be possible, but most of the time the pulse is distributed even more widely. “Basically, there are multiple perspectives on the pulse,” he explains. “Like, one drummer might hear everything, whereas the other drummer might have to be thinking of another perspective on where to frame the pulse. That’s kind of a harmonic thing, too, if you imagine two or three voices, and they’re arguing over who’s got the centre of the pitch. Each person could feel they’re the harmonic centre, and it can be that way with rhythm.”
He laughs. “There’s a lot of technical stuff going on that I don’t need to share,” he adds. “But it is sort of like slowing down harmony to these pulse frequencies and then tuning to each other, which has to go on over time.”
The music’s rhythmic intricacy, the way it often builds to a slow simmer, and that shifting time sense will inevitably remind some listeners of American minimalism; the slowly cascading “Inhabit III”, in particular, suggested a jazz-tinged investigation of Steve Reich’s work to this listener. West admits that he’s fond of Reich, and minimalism in general, but traces that influence to the mid-century modernist composer Henry Cowell, who numbered John Cage, George Gershwin, and the proto-minimalist Lou Harrison among his students.
“It’s mostly due to his book New Musical Resources, because he talks about this new framing of pulse according to these [mathematical] ratios, just like the way the harmonic overtone series works,” he explains. “Minimalism just fits nicely, because sometimes I like to just let something present itself and not really feel like I have to affect it that much. Some of these things you can just really set up these relationships, and then there’s, like, micro-improvisation. You might not make any major gestures, but the way you tune or feel the pulse, it’s always going to have variation in it. But I do love how rich the most minimal thing can be, if you’re listening.”
On saxophone, West also seems to be reevaluating the work of some jazz intellectuals of the 1950s and ’60s. Lee Konitz and Steve Lacy had a significant impact on his playing, he admits, and I’d suggest that Jimmy Giuffre’s careful balancing act between the avant-garde and earlier styles might also have been a role model. But West, perhaps counter-intuitively, says that Coleman Hawkins is another of his loves, and that might explain the warmth of his sonic conception.
Perhaps the most important factor in the Brodie West Quintet’s remarkably subtle interplay, however, is that its five members have been working together for a long time—in some cases, a very long time. Although Philippe Melanson will replace Cartwright for the West Coast tour that will bring the band to the Ironworks on Saturday (November 2), as part of the Coastal Jazz and Blues Society’s Ironfest weekend, it has had had no other changes in membership during its decade-long existence.
“The chemistry has to do with the material, working the material up over the years,” West says. “The others get to know my way of communicating the material in rehearsals, and there’s some language around our intentions. But another answer to that question is just like… Well, Tania and I have played together since I was 13, or something like that, and I’m almost 50. We’ve played together for a long time, and there’s a special way of communicating—like, it’s almost telepathic or something. I don’t know. I feel like that’s a real thing with music, but you can’t really quantify it or explain it exactly. It’s just some connection that’s pretty magical.
As magical, perhaps, as lying in some sunlit glade on a warm afternoon, listening to birdsong and insect buzz—and every bit as natural.
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