JASON ROBINSON

ANCESTRAL NUMBERS 1

Playscape Recordings

Jason Robinson, tenor & soprano saxophones/alto flute/composer/arranger; Joshua White, piano; Drew Gress, bass; Ches Smith, drums/glockenspiel; Michael Dessen, trombone.

Woodwind player, Jason Robinson asked the question, “What does ancestry sound like?”  The answer to his self-imposed question became this album. The project is called “Ancestral Numbers 1” and became a sound meditation project reflecting his family history and genealogy.  Robinson’s plan is to release two volumes of music reflecting his ancestry in 2024.  This is the first volume.

“I’m fascinated by the way that we sonify stories in the jazz tradition.  To paraphrase Charlie Parker, if you don’t live an experience, it won’t come out of your horn.  So, it felt like a natural turn to take all the storytelling approaches that I’ve been working on over the years and think about ancestry through that lens,” Jason Robinson explained.

Robinson is a critically acclaimed composer and scholar who has dabbled in popular music, experimental music, electronic music, and jazz.  On the very first tune of his latest album release called, Second House” you can hear the various mediums and genres mixed like a musical soup.  Robinson lays a funk foundation, like a roux, spicing it up with horn harmonies and Joshua White’s piano echoing the repetitive melodic line, then scurrying across the keys with broken arpeggios. Experimental music rises like steam from the pot. Chez Smith is the giant wooden spoon that stirs the brew with his drums.

Track #2 is titled “Malachi” and tip toes on the scene like a child creeping into his parent’s bedroom in the wee small hours of the morning.  The horns mimic car alarms outside the bedroom window.  Drew Gress uses his bow to coach tones from his double bass and sing his own unique song.  The trombone and saxophone have a spirited conversation while the other instruments lay-out.  Robinson takes an extensive solo on his tenor saxophone, exploring the entire range of the instrument. For a while, only Jason Robinson solos with Smith on drums.  Each one spurs the other forward. Robinson’s technique of what I call dribbling the tone is unique.  He blows into his horn, tempering the tone with a technique that sounds like a baby blowing spit bubbles from innocent lips.

On “Potentiality” Robinson steps into Straight-ahead mode.  His solo is dynamic and interesting.  I’m not crazy about the repetition he uses in every song, sometimes getting stuck on a cadenza or phrase that repeats over and over again.  However, on his composition “Potentiality,” he displays more imagination, along with a certain jazzy excitement, climbing chromatically up the scale, and  at the end, coming to an abrupt halt.

Jason Robinson offers us his life, viewed from a musical perspective, meant to represent the people and personalities in his family tree.  He’s sharing musical stories of those who have genealogically influenced him and the musician he has come to be.

Reviewed by Dee Dee McNeil

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