Waxwing’s program of measured-but-not-muted chamber jazz is melodic and graceful, yet the eighteen tracks never abandon rhythmic thrust or technical sophistication. Three of Vancouver’s most inventive players—cellist Peggy Lee, saxophonist Jon Bentley, and guitarist Tony Wilson—are joined by flutist Miranda Clingwall on three tracks. The prerecording, sampling, and looping of the timbres produced by Bentley and Wilson on additional string and percussion instruments give Flicker Down a sound that is richer and more multilayered than most chamber-styled discs.
Sound manipulation never gets in the way of authentic sensitivity: non-acoustic textures are aurally transparent. The hybrid manipulations used on “Highway of Tears,” which memorializes murdered Indigenous women, are secondary to the melancholy projected by emotional reed slurs and sweeping cello harmonies. Other tunes vibrate joyously: on the swirling “Just Saying,” Lee approximates rural fiddling, Wilson country twanging; “Your Bet” is animated by the chiming and percussive stops and rubs from the strings. Harmonized to move the exposition from a canter to a trot, “Crossing Paths” contrasts gentle guitar finger-picking and staccato sax-blowing as cello stops provide an underlying ostinato.
These currents cross on “Joe’s Theme,” on which Lee’s concentrated glissandi— ascending and descending from horizonal movement—doorstop the elaborations from splintered reed peeps and ringing guitar strums, so that the theme ends up simultaneously decorated and propelled. Exploratory, with lyricism paced with logic, Flicker Down perfectly exemplifies restrained creativity.
Ken Waxman is a Toronto-based journalist who has written about improvised and other musics for many years. Many of his articles on music can be accessed at <www.jazzword.com>.