Jazz
saxophonist and composer Aaron Irwin's striking new album A Room Forever, features twelve original works of music, each of which is
a reflection of one of the twelve published short stories by critically
acclaimed West Virginian author Breece D'J Pancake. Three noted New York-based musicians join
Irwin on this powerful release: trombonist Matthew McDonald, bassist Thomson
Kneeland, and guitarist Pete McCann.
"I have been working on this project with these guys for well over
a year and have been so pleased with how the music has evolved over that time.
These three musicians have such strong musical voices and were able to shape
the music in a way that is both highly musical and uniquely personal. I
couldn't ask for more."
Irwin talks
about the inspiration behind the music. "Through a friend's
recommendation, I picked up Breece Pancake's collection of short stories and
was immediately drawn to his bleak, unflinching expression of lives' stubbornly
hewn to their past.' The struggles of
these characters and the hollows of Pancake's native West Virginia reminded me
of the receding farm communities I grew up with in central Illinois. As aptly
put by Joyce Carol Oates in her 1983 review, I felt compelled to set these
ideas to music as 'to make the past present.'"
Irwin's
highly stylized music creates sonic landscapes that can best be described as a
mixture of American folk music, avant-garde jazz and pastoral elements of
classical music. The album begins eerily with the title track, A Room Forever,
which has a haunting intensity that grows throughout, putting the listener on
the edge of their seat. "The story in A Room Forever is a nightmarish
scene that takes place on New Year's Eve, and I wanted to give the music a kind
of disturbed Auld Lang Syne feel to it," Irwin notes. Each of the
following pieces takes the listener on a different journey sometimes soaring,
as Matt McDonald's elegant trombone playing does in The Way It Has to Be, and
sometimes sweetly reflecting, as does Irwin's homey clarinet playing on
Trilobites.
The chamber
music-like instrumentation quickly draws the listener into each fragile and nuanced
musical world, full of space and detail as in The First Day of Winter, which
features the remarkable bass work by Thomson Kneeland. Guitarist Pete McCann
has much to say on the dark and jarring Time and Again. The album ends with the wonderful piece, The
Mark, which leaves the listener seemingly suspended in air wanting more and
grateful for the pleasure of the journey.
Breece
Dexter John Pancake (1952-1979) was an American short story author and native
of West Virginia whose hardscrabble landscapes and characters informed and
influenced his writing. He has to his name only one posthumously published book
of short stories after a life cut short at the age of 26. Pancake's stories lay
out a world located in the hills of his home - "the pockets of neglected
farm and mining country where people lose their livelihoods, their friends and
lovers, their land and their birthrights, but remain stubbornly hewn in
place," Critical praise for his work has been nearly universal with
parallels drawn between his work and that of Flannery O'Connor, Sherwood
Anderson, John Steinbeck, James Joyce, and Ernest Hemingway.
Critically
acclaimed saxophonist, multiple woodwind player, and composer, Aaron Irwin has
been a mainstay in the New York music scene for over 10 years. Known as a "lyrical alto saxophonist and
a compelling original composer" (Steve Futterman, New Yorker), Irwin is
sought after in both the jazz and commercial worlds. In addition to leading his own groups, Irwin
has performed with many leading jazz voices in the New York jazz community
including the Grammy-nominated group Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, Bob
Sabin's Tentet, as well as pop performers Kristen Chenoweth, Rufus Wainwright,
Josh Groban, and Idina Menzel.
A Room
Forever is Irwin's fifth album as a leader.
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