By Gregg Miller  

Ash is the Mat Maneri Quartet’s second installment to a proposed trilogy,
following up on the beautiful Mud (Sunnyside, 2019), with a projected third recording (Mist) within the works. The quartet is Mat Maneri’s viola, joined by Lucian Ban
(piano), John Hébert (bass), and Randy Peterson (drums). Maneri has performed
with Hébert for the reason that Nineties, Randy Peterson for the reason that late 80s, and Ban
since round 2010. The communication throughout the 4 gamers feels
easy, all the time looking, by no means trite. Every of the three titles in
the trilogy alerts one thing evanescent, elusive but omnipresent and
uncontrollable, atmospheric.

Maneri’s music invokes a particular tone world: moody and sorrowful, a
bit decrepit; earthy decay in opposition to a background of blight blanched by hazy
daylight. The lilting motion of sound over a windswept subject of considerably
sickly wildflowers, muted yellows and reds, boring greens and browns. New
classical, however in reality a jazz combo that has dropped the formalism, saved
the nocturne, and added a torch singer carried by the viola veering in and
round pitchless angst. Maneri’s viola is mourning incarnate. I may
take heed to the primary three items of this recording on countless repeat.

I first got here to Mat Maneri’s musical idea listening to his triptych of
data on Leo recordings: Fifty-One Sorrows (1999), Fever Mattress (2000), and For Consequence (2003), after which his solo work on Trinity (ECM, 2001). (This isn’t even to say his work with Matthew Shipp, or his
HatHut recordings along with his father, the late clarinetist/saxophonist Joe
Maneri (although do try Out Proper Now (HatHut, 2001)  with Joe Maneri and Joe Morris on guitar), and Dahabenzapple (Hat Hut, 1996)with Joe Maneri, Cecil McBee on bass, and Randy Peterson.) I used to be and
stay very taken by his singular expressiveness. Inside a reasonably tight
aesthetic, Maneri opens up a approach of permitting the viola to talk its
unhappiness. In his interview with DJ Michael Schell (on KBCS (Bellevue
Faculty) from this previous October), Maneri jokes that he’s the “Goth Jazz man.” However then extra significantly,
“I’ve all the time beloved the melancholy. It speaks to me.” It speaks to him and
via him to us, the halting implication that we share the world’s
mourning.

The tracks on Ash are all of a bit. Viola rasping over and in opposition to the refined however nonetheless
cleanly tonal piano, the slowly throbbing bass, Peterson’s emotive
percussion—no time, all emphasis, unraveling traces.

Highlights from the report: The second observe, “Mud to Mud,” captures a
slow-motion mist, working it over 10 minutes. The liner notes learn: “Mud
to mud through which mud itself is a prerequisite for mud through which mud
returns to mud and once more . . . as if there isn’t any finish besides within the coming
again round of the top.” The cycle of everlasting return. When Maneri drops
off to let the piano-bass-drums trio do their factor, the impact is of a
fog lifting. Ban performs lead and a mildly cheerful moodiness seems;
Maneri returns and the tone is reset to the stoically tragic, nose to nose
with the muted melancholy of our state of affairs. On the third observe, “Earth,”
Peterson’s drum solo closing it out slowly over the final two and a half
minutes is a factor of magnificence. The ultimate observe, “Chilly World Lullaby” has an
Jap European taste. Romanian, maybe. Much less Maneri’s idea, than
his idea utilized to an adjoining style. It works.

I do want John Hébert’s bass had been higher represented in its sonic element.
The quartet performed Seattle as a part of the Earshot Jazz pageant in
November, 2023. Brandon Lopez sat in for Hébert. Within the new auditorium of
Cornish Faculty of the Arts, the sound was improbable.

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