10/10
Ashley Jackson, harp.
Bright Shiny Things, 2023
Ashley Jackson’s luminous and much-anticipated debut album Ennanga celebrates the essential role Black composers and performers play in America. The music is retold and elevated by exquisite performances in addition to thoughtful transcribing that unite into one storyline. Not often does a musician perform as if channeling the composers, with an affinity and generosity that’s palpable.
There’s care to each note delivered from the outset, beginning in an arrangement of Prema by Alice Coltrane. In Sanskrit, ‘prema’ means pure love from the divine, a love which completely melts the heart. In the original, Coltrane performs at the piano, creating a soundscape that transcends the mundane, ultimately delivering us to a whole new plane where the spirit dwells and the universe is laid out before us.
Jackson captures the essence of mystery in her poignant reimagining, the colors rich and glowing. Coltrane offers inspiration as does the plucking style of the West African kora tradition. The continuously fluid ostinato galvanizes the feeling of infinity and boundlessness; we feel the harp shapeshift especially when buoyed by the Harlem Chamber Players offering an organ-like series of chords, inhaling and exhaling. It’s enlivening, like floating in the ocean, a blanket of stars our ceiling.
Jackson demonstrates a deep sensitivity in her transcription of one of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s favorite spirituals I’m Troubled in Mind. It’s a stark and searing text with the words “I’m troubled” repeated three times before the bald statement “If trouble won’t kill me, I will live a long time.” The harp plumbs the depths of despair longing for relief which is finally on offer midway as the mood shifts to a tender hopefulness.
Drawing on the innovative style and contributions to jazz of Dorothy Ashby, Brandee Younger’s Essence of Ruby is a masterwork showing off traditional harp technique as alive and well within a popular oeuvre. Ashley Jackson whispers and soars in her performance, maintaining a steady groove, all with a level of intimacy that demands our full presence. She is one of those musicians unafraid to be vulnerable, or linger in silence, or leave unanswered questions on the table. Her playing is breathtaking.
The title track, Ennanga by the “Dean of African American Music” William Grant Still refers to the harp of Uganda. Jangly and resonant, this instrument is limited to five notes, relying heavily on varied and syncopated rhythms plus the artistry of the harpist. Jackson offers an expansive performance, particularly in the dreamy cadenza and driving finale, carried along by the spectacular Harlem Chamber Players. It’s a marriage of folk-influenced and classical that’s presented wholeheartedly, loose and as if created on the spot, both soulful and brimming with joy.
Jackson ends her superb disc with a kind of summing up of her intentions, a postlude as it were to celebrating Black artists and their contributions to what we call American music. It’s another spiritual composed by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, The Angels Changed My Name. She brings us full circle where we can really digest what sets this stunning artist apart—a humanity and gift of spirit that allows for music to be simply channeled through her. Ashley Jackson is a wonder.
