Raised
in an eclectic musical household, Natalie Cressman has only continued to
diversify and expand her musical universe. Still in her early 20s, the
trombonist, composer, and vocalist has assimilated the full range of her sonic
influences into a startlingly mature, strikingly original voice that melds the
sophistication of modern jazz with captivating storytelling and intoxicating
melodies reminiscent of indie rock's most distinctive songwriters.
Cressman
has spent much of the last three years touring the jam band circuit with
Phish's Trey Anastasio, while also performing with jazz luminaries Nicholas
Payton, Wycliffe Gordon, and Peter Apfelbaum. Those varied experiences are
reflected on her gorgeous second release, Turn the Sea. Anastasio calls the
album "a beacon of light in an increasingly cold and mechanized era of
music. Natalie is standing on the precipice of an incredible life in music, and
if this album is any indication of where she's headed, then I'll be listening
every step of the way."
Inspired
in part by those bandleaders' boundary-blurring approaches, Turn the Sea
reveals a sound that's utterly uncategorizable but instantly accessible, one
that belies but is also a product of Cressman's youth. "I want to make
music that my own generation can respond to," Cressman says. "I would
really love for anyone to listen to my music and find something to relate to. I
don't want to shut people out by being overly sophisticated and esoteric, even
though everything I write is jazz-based and more dynamic and spontaneous than a
lot of the music that is wildly popular."
The disc
features a stellar eight-piece band, largely culled from Cressman's Bay Area
peers: trumpeter Ivan Rosenberg, flutist and clarinetist Steven Lugerner,
saxophonist James Casey, keyboardist Samora Pinderhughes, guitarist Gabe
Schneider, bassist Jonathan Stein, and drummer Michael Mitchell join the
bandleader, who sings and plays trombone. The two talents, she says, are
intimately related. "I think the fact that I sing influences and affects
the way I play the trombone and vice versa. The voice in my head that I write
with and play with and sing with is the same, but the medium is
different."
Cressman
was raised in San Francisco by parents who guaranteed she would be constantly
surrounded by music. Her mother, Sandy Cressman, is a jazz vocalist who
immersed herself deeply into the traditions of Brazilian music; her father,
Jeff Cressman, is a recording engineer, trombonist, and longtime member of
Santana. Natalie quite naturally began studying trombone with her father, but
set out to be a dancer rather than a musician. She was an aspiring ballet
dancer until her junior year of high school, when an injury set her on a
different path.
Once she
set her sights on a career in music, her parents provided not only role models
but active assistance, helping to provide her with some of her earliest
opportunities. "Seeing how inspired and passionate my parents were about
what they were doing lit a fire in me once I decided to go for music,"
Cressman recalls.
Her
parents provided entrée to a number of enviable opportunities, but Cressman's
own prodigious gifts continued to merit her presence in any number of
high-profile settings. She soon found herself playing salsa with Uruguayan
percussionist Edgardo Cambon e Orquesta Candela, Latin Jazz with Pete
Escovedo's Latin Jazz Orchestra, world music with Jai Uttal and the Pagan Love
Orchestra, and globally-inspired avant-garde jazz with multi-instrumentalist
Peter Apfelbaum, a family friend who became a key mentor. Cressman continues to
work with Apfelbaum in his ensembles, The New York Hieroglyphics and Sparkler.
Cressman
switched coasts in 2009 to study at the Manhattan School of Music, and the
following year was enlisted by jam band pioneer Trey Anastasio for his touring
band. "I first met Natalie when she was 18, and I was instantly floored by
how melodically and naturally she played and sang," Anastasio says.
"Natalie is the rarest of musicians. Born into a musical family and raised
in a home filled with the sounds of Brazilian music, jazz and Afro-Cuban
rhythms, she is seeping with innate musicality. Musicality is in her DNA."
Following
her jazz-oriented debut, Unfolding, with the more song-based Turn the Sea was
at least partially a result of her tenure with Anastasio, Cressman says.
"Trey always wants to include the audience, but he doesn't dumb down his
music to do it. I find myself between two worlds with the music that I'm writing;
it's not bread and butter jazz but it's not wholly anything else either."
It would
be equally difficult to pinpoint Cressman's music, and at the same time equally
hard to resist its allure. The album's title track marries her silken voice and
lyrical trombone with a surging rhythm evocative of waves crashing and
receding; "Fortune's Fool" is a melancholy love song propelled by a
somber, Middle Eastern-inflected pulse; "New Moon" sets enigmatic
lyrics to a soulful, flute and Rhodes-driven groove which segues into a soaring
chorus that draws on West African rhythms.
Lyrically,
Cressman hopes to connect with listeners by dealing with universal subjects,
while offering her own unique twist. "It's interesting how many different
ways you can write about love," she says. "I like to put on different
characters when I compose, because I feel like my own life is often too
ordinary to write only autobiographical songs. Sometimes I use snippets of
other people's stories to create a new character and write from their
perspective."
The
album also features songs by two of Cressman's inspirations, reconfigured for
her ensemble and voice. Norwegian singer-songwriter Hanne Hukkelberg provides
"Do Not As I Do," while "Blindsided" is a song by indie
favorite Bon Iver. The latter maintains the ethereal mood conjured by the
original. "He gets a lot of mileage out of not too much," Cressman
says of Bon Iver singer-songwriter Justin Vernon. "I'm trying to discover
how little I can write and still have it mean as much as possible."
The
album ends with a remix of opening track "Turn the Sea," courtesy of
the band's bassist in his electronica-producer guise of JNTHN STEIN. The track
hints at yet more future directions for the adventurous Cressman, while making
literal the song's message of risk-taking. "It's a good bookend," she
says, "coming back to where you began but in a totally different
place."
Upcoming
Natalie Cressman Tour Dates:
March 20
/ Church of Boston / Boston, MA
March 21
/ Nectar's / Burlington, VT
March 30
/ Joe's Pub / New York, NY
Natalie
Cressman· Turn The Sea / Cressman
Music · Release Date: March 11, 2014
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