Graham Reid | | 1 min read
I Could Have Danced All Night
Has it really been eight years since we offered a potted profile of the wonderful soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom and subtitled it “an artist going beyond place and time"?
We mentioned in passing her early Nineties album Art and Aviation.
Since then we've reviewed a couple more of her albums, one of them being in our best of 2021 list.
Now she returns with duets and trio pieces with pianist Dominic Fallacaro, drummer Bobby Previte and bassist Mark Helias.
And once more she aims for the beyond with a collection entitled Songs in Space.
Although the “space” here is in the algebra of the placement of sound, it's also notable that Bloom – who has had a long association with NASA and has an asteroid named after her – includes originals with the titles Better Starlight, Riding My Planet, Escape Velocity, Song from the Stars and Space rangers.
These are alongside the lovely standards I Could Have Danced All Night and My Foolish Heart. Those romantic melodies probably seem an easy choice for Bloom but with Fallacaro she brings a yearning sadness to the otherwise upbeat romanticism of the former and on the latter – a song largely forgotten these days – they play it quite straight and with purity to bring out the elegance of the tune.
The original Cry Without an Alphabet with Fallacaro might also have been a romantic ballad in a previous life and its melody seems to invite lyrics to be added.
The more impressionistic Beckett here would defy any kind of lyrics as it advances and retreats with suddenness which renders it more abstract.
Elsewhere as a trio they loosen the straps for Polaris, a piece in which Bloom offers a piercing quality in places which brings out a kind of gravity-defying mood. And also for Escape Velocity, a piece which cleverly doesn't let the listener find a centre to rest in but keeps teasing and inviting you to follow it.
At 70, Jane Ira Bloom continues to go her own way and, as always, she is worth following.
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You can hear this album at Spotify here
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