Life Force, The Music of Joel Harrison= JOEL HARRISON: Go Toward the Light for solo cello; Life Force for violin & cello; My Father’s Violin for solo violin; Winter Dances for solo cello; Epilogue for solo cello – Wendy Sutter, cello/Tim Fain, violin – Orange Mountain Music OMM0075, 46:02 (Distr. by Harmonia mundi) *****:
Joel Harrison is a guitarist, arranger, composer and band leader who has created a style of music that seems to cross the boundaries between jazz clubs and the concert hall. As Harrison has said, himself, “Sometimes it’s just about creating good music”. This new Orange Mountain release proves the point in a convincing and poignant manner. This release is all about Joel Harrison, composer, and features two of the most astonishing young string artists one can find playing “crossover” repertory like this. Wendy Sutter, cellist and Tim Fain, violinist put heart and soul, emotion and muscle into Harrison’s technically amped up but still heartfelt music. Each piece is clearly intended to convey a deeply felt personal message and succeeds on all levels.
Wendy Sutter uses a technique called “circular bowing” in which the bow tip changes angle during up-stroke and down-stroke to all but eliminate lift and the ensuing breaks, so that the sound is audibly very continuous. This is used to great effect in “Go Toward the Light”, written shortly after Harrison’s father died, and is, indeed, a journey conveying forward motion surrounded by brilliance. The subsequent work in this collection, “Life Force”, for cello and violin, is another highly personalized expression of thoughts on dear ones departing. In this case, the three-movement work is dedicated to three different people who have meant something personal to the composer and who had recently died. This altogether intense and beautiful work provides reflections on first, guitarist Jaco Pastorius and the resulting music is a bit elegiac and intense, but restful. The second is dedicated to the memory of arts promoter, Tom McBurney, and finds us in a softer, more mysterious, sound world populated by harmonics and ethereal effects. The last, for a friend of Harrison’s, Jim Estabrook, provides a very “positive” sound, very forward-moving and a coda like close featuring some jazz inspired syncopation. This piece alone is worth getting this disc and rightly provides the title.
All of Harrison’ music seems to be influenced by his collective experiences; jazz, rock, minimalism, morphed into a very personal unique sound. Another prime example is “My Father’s Violin”, a two-movement solo violin work built on pentatonic and the north Indian raga the “Marwa”. Both movements, “Lonesome Valley” and “August Winds: Desolation Peak” are very ecstatic in their sound, almost Appalachian in their vocabulary. The other two works in this collection, “Winter Dances” and “Epilogue”, both for solo cello, were both originally conceived as part of the “Go Toward the Light” and now stand alone as very simple, almost static, folk-like works of undeniable beauty.
Both performers are superb here! Tim Fain, violinist has been an Avery Fisher Grant winner as well as one of ‘Symphony” magazine’s ‘up and coming’ artists. Wendy Sutter has made a career out of featuring exciting new works by a number of “new music” composers including Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Meredith Monk and Philip Glass, whose own label and sound engineers produced this album. There are moments in this set that reminded me of other jazz/minimal inspired string artists such as violinist Michael Galasso. There are so many reasons to recommend this album. I am sure that fans of modern music, especially the para-minimalist school, would enjoy this a great deal. However, strings players and fans of highly impressive, aggressive, meaty string playing would no doubt be amazed by Sutter and Fain. It made me want to go catch more of Joel Harrison’s music, probably his acclaimed “The Wheel”.
— Daniel Coombs