Through the Storm

We recorded Through the Storm, the Carole Nelson Trio's 4th album, in two days at Hellfire Studios with Ivan Jackman at the helm. I had kept all the compositions fairly simple and open, knowing that I could trust each of us to bring freshness and invention to each piece. We took a couple of takes for each track and that was it. I went back later to add some alto saxophone to two of the pieces (tracks 8 &11).

1. We Begin Here opens the album with a gentle awakening as we feel our way into a 12/8 rhythm reminiscent of Abdullah Ibrahim and the South African jazz that I first heard in the 80s in London. Here is where the swallows start their migratory journey; here is also where both the human story and the jazz story begin. Dominic has a tongue drum sitting on his snare, soft metallic notes -random magic.
2. Lift Off begins with a repeated rhythmic motif and then launches itself into time- no-changes free swing. I imagine that moment when the birds are gathering and are uncertain whether to take off or not, short flurries of flight and then off we go!
3. Through the Storm: Here the piano hints at the calm before the storm. A 13/8 rhythmic motif propels the music forward, the piano holding the energy in the centre as the storm erupts around us. Then we’re safely out the other side.
4. Sky Journey: Up in the air, freedom, flight and beautiful chords to play around with.
5. Arrival: I brought in this piano melody and chord sequence, thinking of all the jazz composers I love who embrace simple melody with idiosyncratic quirks. Dominic and Cormac proceeded to tear it apart while I clung on in the middle. I love what the two of them bring to the process- shaking me out of my pre-conceived notions.
6. Refuge:  A simple ¾ piece gives Cormac’s bass the melody in this gentle landing. May all migrating beings find refuge.                        
7. Kauai-o-o The last song of its species recorded in 1987 for Cornell Lab of Ornithology
8. Eden:  An improvisation that takes the sequence of notes GDCFCG from the Kauai-o-o recording and expresses the pristine pre-industrial paradise of unspoiled habitat. Dominic returns to the tongue drum, echoing the innocence and simplicity of We Begin Here.
9. Encroachment: For the arrival of human encroachment I played the Fender Rhodes for a heavier keyboard bassline, a menacing solid funk groove from the lads while I tear around the keys.
10. The Last Song: Cormac’s high bowed bass holds this desolate space while the piano chords transform the notes of the Kauai -o o into a sombre atonal descent. Here is a space for grief and loss.
11. Return: The Kauai-o-o  refrain returns defining each melody note of the five chord sequence. As it grows stronger and increasingly plaintive, Cormac’s bowed bass creates a symphonic swell and the chords shift into a hopeful question. Now we go back and forth from hopeful major to sorrowful minor like children learning music for the first time. The question is asked and remains unanswered.
12.  Epilogue  Taken from a longer free improvisation, we just couldn’t leave this out!

 
Carole Nelson