Album Review: John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble's 'Eternal Interlude'

The popularity of large ensembles seems to wax and wane in the jazz world. Since the heyday of big band jazz in the swing age, the last 60 years have seen patchier prolificacy from composers working with groups of ten or more. One recent wave of innovative big band repertoire has come from former students of Bob Brookmeyer, whose compositions for his New Art Orchestra continue to raise eyebrows. Perhaps most notable among these students is Maria Schneider, whose multiple Grammy awards attest to her music's reach and depth.

Since the splash made by Schneider's Evanescence in 1995, a new generation of composers has cropped up in the world of big band literature. Many smell a new interest in large ensemble literature in the air, especially after such prominent press attention as The Wall Street Journal's story on Darcy James Argue – another student in the Brookmeyer lineage – from June 3, 2009. Ironically, this wave of support coincides with some of the toughest financial times for musicians in decades; seldom has supporting a band of 17 musicians been less financially plausible.

But who am I kidding? Jazz has been a less-than-lucrative field for most of its history. However, this never seems to stop innovators from practicing their passions, especially those – like John Hollenbeck – who seem to dwell above the fray. In his most recent release, Eternal Interlude (Sunnyside, 2009), Hollenbeck takes on the challenge of writing for large ensemble again. One of his recorded forays into this realm, Joys and Desires (Intuition, 2005) with the Jazz Bigband Graz, showcased Hollenbeck's textural fluency and stylistic uniqueness: minimalism meets modal jazz meets polytonality meets a host of other things. Eternal Interlude elaborates upon these themes.

The size of these compositions is formidable. Both “Eternal Interlude” and “Perseverance” clock in at over 17 minutes, and not due to a Coltranesque devotion to extended soloing. The listener must wait a full five and a half minutes before hearing the first improvised solo on “Foreign One,” the opening track. All this is to say that Eternal Interlude is first and foremost a work of composition, not simply a collection of vehicles for improvisation.

Hollenbeck is unique in his propensity for setting text that lies far outside the normal realm of jazz lyrics. Joys and Desires included the haunting “The Garden of Love,” a setting of William Blake's poem by the same name. “The Cloud” takes the 14th-century mystic text “The Cloud of Unknowing,” and weaves it into a contemporary minimalistic tapestry. Setting texts of this weight takes skill, and demands a stylistic trajectory pointing away from mainstream jazz: imagine singing a Shakespearean sonnet to the tune of “Have You Met Miss Jones” and you'll see what I mean. Ancient texts aren't the only surprisingly timeless element in this album either. Check out the similarity between the sporadic seventh chords in “Eternal Interlude” and the first sea interlude in Benjamin Britten's opera, Peter Grimes.

Though a place at the table should always be reserved for the preservation of big band music from the swing age, it remains an unexpected treat to find music that launches out of tradition as confidently and skillfully as Hollenbeck's does. Like his melodies, which so often sail freely and patiently over a busy backdrop of pointillistic dexterity, Hollenbeck has proven an imperviously unique force in jazz, adapting stylistic and thematic material that would otherwise be considered completely foreign to the idiom. I eagerly look forward to his future contributions to the worlds of composed and improvised music.

Release Date

August 18th, 2009 on Sunny Side Records

Personnel:

John Hollenbeck: drums, composition, whistler (4); Kermit Driscoll: acoustic, electric bass; Gary Versace: piano, organ, keyboard; Theo Bleckmann; voice, whistler (4); Ben Kono: flute, soprano, alto saxophone, whistler (4); Jeremy Viner: clarinet, tenor saxophone; Tony Malaby: tenor, soprano saxophone; Dan Willis: tenor, soprano saxophone, flute, english horn, whistler (4); Bohdan Hilash: clarinet, bass clarinet, contra-alto clarinet, whistler (4); Ellery Eskelin: tenor saxophone (5, 6); Rob Hudson: trombone, whistler (4); Mike Christianson: trombone, whistler (4); Jacob Garchik: tenor horn (2), whistler (4); Alan Ferber: trombone; trumpet/flugelhorn: trombone; Tony Kadleck: trombone; Jon Owens: trombone, whistler (4); Dave Ballou: trombone; Laurie Frink: trombone; Matt Moran: mallet percussion (1, 3, 4); John Ferrari: mallet percussion (2, 5, 6); JC Sanford: conductor.

Track List:

1. Foreign One
2. Eternal Interlude
3. Guarana
4. The Cloud
5. Perseverence
6. No Boat