For many
years I preferred the music, inventiveness and especially fearlessness
(risk-taking) of Christine Jensen’s older sister, Ingrid:
in particular, her album At Sea (2006). I found the former’s
improvising, as if in thrall to presets that limit expression
instead of firing it up, too rectangular: In the end, all too
neat and neatly wrapped up – and quickly forgotten. But
beginning with a series of concerts entitled Nordic Connect, it
became very evident that saxophonist Christine Jensen had rather
suddenly (many still haven’t caught up to her evolution),
upped her game. For her spell-binding 2014 Montreal
International Jazz Festival concert at l’Astral,
which featured an original orchestral work entitled Habitat,
Jensen left no doubt that she is now among the elite jazz composers
-- and not just in Canada but in North America.
Habitat
is a tightly knit, superbly contoured labour of love that requires
a 19-piece orchestra. The working title was inspired by Montreal’s
Habitat 67, a futuristic apartment complex that features multi-leveled
environments and a highly original reconfiguration of both public
and private space. It was unlike anything the world had seen and
today, half a century later, it is still regarded as an architectural
landmark and is a designated heritage site. Christine Jensen's
Habitat, in terms of its multi-faceted structural components
and use of a unusual tones and textures to demarcate and invigorate
space, is no less impressive a work.
One of
the inherent shortcomings of the big band sound is that it invariably
overwhelms the personalities of the individuals that comprise
it. Even in the improvisational sections, the big shouldered,
sonic boom aspect of an orchestra restricts the musicians' personal
expression in the same way smaller ensembles free it. What distinguishes
Habitat
from other grandly conceived works is that despite the large sound,
a very clear and up-close portrait of Christine Jensen emerges
through her meticulous composing, conducting and playing. What
is refreshingly clear from the outset is that Jensen is not interested
in the orchestra concept in order to take command of it or, à
la Maynard Ferguson et al, bask in its lushness. While
she was conceiving the work, she intuitively understood that the
orchestra – the reservoir of raw tonal material it provides
– would best allow her to be her own person in her music.
Reduced
to its essentials, Habitat is a confessional or personal
space the composer has created in order to position herself, find
her bearings and make sense of the world around her. She makes
sure, in her compositional choices, that there will be no walls
of sound behind which the soloists can hide or slack off. Of note
in the improvisational sections is the refusal to play by the
rules which in jazz mostly calls for the soloist to improvise
off an unvarying harmonic (music's equivalent of minimalism).
Habitat's improvisations are lively because the framework
that guides the musician includes timely modulations, subtle mood
swings and shifting time signatures: the kind of stuff (of life)
that distinguishes, for example, The American Songbook from other
improvisational material.
In her
more exploratory moments, no matter how far out she goes, Jensen
always returns to what is non-negotiable in music: those recognizable
melodies to which all music, like the hunter, returns homeward
bound. And when she pairs off with her trumpet playing sister,
you’re not sure who is playing such is the complicity that
transforms their dialogue into a single stream of consciousness
as they respond in kind to wonderfully integrated harmonic structures
that they sometimes stretch to the breaking point before relaxing
them in order to shift into another gear or ease into another
dimension. Throughout
the work, we delight in its many unexpected turns and convolutions
that, like a missing step in a stairway, are sure to keep us engaged
and alert in both ascension and descent.
If too
much of jazz is spent on improvisation at the expense of composition,
Christine Jensen’s Habitat is both an accusation
and refreshing correction that invites repeated listening. In
its taut and meticulously conceived architecture and emotional
breadth that does the composer proud and true, I’m persuaded
that, over time, it will generate the interest and study it richly
deserves.
Photo©
Hanna
Donato
