“Sunny Jain is an innovative percussionist/composer and master of the double-sided Indian dhol drum, known for combining his Punjabi roots with his love of post-bop, jazz, fusion, psychedelic rock and more. He first earned critical success with his brass and drum ensemble Red Baraat and has worked with several of the greats throughout his career. Wild Wild East, his 2020 album, explored the myth of the American cowboy through the lens of an immigrant.”
From WBGO.org
Pianist Joey Alexander has a few associations with the onset of summer. “I think summer is a time where we flourish,” he tells WBGO. “It’s a time of maturing. So I decided to write this tune in the sense of being hopeful, looking forward to a time when we can perform, and in this uncertainty, we don’t feel obligated and we don’t feel stuck.”
The song to which Alexander is referring is “Summer Rising” — his new single on Verve, premiering today at WBGO. With a vibrant melody and a flowing pulse in quintuple meter, it features Jaleel Shaw as a special guest on alto saxophone, along with Daniel Winshall on bass and Tyson D. Jackson on drums. “Summer Rising” is the third standalone single that Alexander has released this spring, following “Salt” (in March) and “Under the Sun” (in April). “All three songs I wrote during the height of the pandemic,” Alexander says. “And to me, ‘Summer Rising’ — I would say basically it’s about, in this uncertainty: how do we rise above it?”
“Pat Metheny’s latest, Road To The Sun, represents several departures for the individualistic guitarist-composer. First off, with this record he steps away from his longtime label at Nonesuch to join the recently formed Modern Recordings, an imprint of BMG devoted to jazz-classical-electronic hybrids. Then, he doesn’t play much on the album, turning his two lengthy, multipart compositions over to leading classical players to perform. He does reserve one track for himself, though—Arvo Pärt’s “Für Alina”—on which he plays his 42-string Pikasso guitar, the odd, cubism-inspired instrument that allows him to mobilize as many tones as possible in one sitting.”
Road dropped in early March, but the PR buzz around Metheny’s album — specifically in classical music circles — has been buzzing since late 2020. See, the 20-time Grammy Award winning guitarist and composer is a “jazz guy” (though if he were to have the floor, he’d let you know he isn’t a big fan of such distinctions), so even the suggestion that he’d “go classical” was enough to fuel the hype machine.
Road to the Sun is an album in three parts: there are two new works composed by Metheny and performed by guitarist Jason Vieaux and the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, respectively; and a finale featuring Arvo Pärt’s Fur Alina, featuring the 42-string fingerwork of Pat himself. Naturally, our conversation had its roots in this latest project, but it ultimately morphed into an exploration of musicianship, artistic philosophy, and what music really is.
Since the heyday of John Fahey, the genre has been seen as the province of white men. A new generation of diverse players is rapidly changing that.
Even avowed Fahey acolyte Gwenifer Raymond is compelled by the change. “My entire bloody career has been founded by dudes,” she said, guffawing in her apartment in England. “Representation matters — that’s just true. The music can only get more interesting.”
IN ENGLAND, RAYMOND does not shy from the impact Fahey had on her life.
As a kid in Wales, she started writing blues instrumentals after Nirvana led her to Lead Belly. When her guitar teacher handed her a Fahey LP, she felt validated. Released on Tompkins Square, her 2020 album, “Strange Lights Over Garth Mountain,” is one of the most bracing recent bits of Fahey reappraisal, his grace supercharged by her punk-rock past. “He is almost, by definition, my mean uncle figure,” Raymond said.
Raymond is also a video game programmer with a doctorate in astrophysics, so she is accustomed to fields dominated by men. But their historic grip on power is glacially loosening in all these realms, guitar included.
“The fear of traditional roles is disappearing,” she said. “This is one effect.”