This Rock...

How does one use music to teach?  Can a song or song cycle change someone's mind?  Can art persuade a society to move forward?  One imagines this to be a project in futility. Still, many artists over the past six decades have written songs that point to the issues surrounding climate change and here's one new recording that stands out for its creativity, intelligence, and musicality.

Photo: Luke Marantz

Composer, arranger, pianist, and educator Mike Holober has had a fascinating musical career.  Classically trained, he's worked almost extensively with Big Bands.  He's led the Westchester (NY) Jazz Orchestra as well as having worked overseas with the hr-Big Band (Frankfurt, Germany) and the WDR Big Band (Cologne, Germany).  Holober teaches at the City College of New York and the Manhattan School of Music.  On top of all that work, he's an active outdoorsman whether it be leading canoe trips or climbing mountains. He is the leader of a Quintet, of the octet Balancing Act, and co-leads a group with trumpeter Marvin Stamm. Holober also leads The Gotham Jazz Orchestra, a large ensemble he assembled two decades ago to perform large-scale works and whose influences are many and varied.  It's that group that takes center stage on the composer's latest adventure, one that blends his love of sonic and stylistic possibilities with his love and concern for the outdoors to new heights (pun somewhat intended). It's also a way for him to add his voice to the growing of people in the US and abroad who are concerned with climate change.

"This Rock We're On: Imaginary Letters" (Palmetto Records) is an often dazzling, mesmerizing, and highly inventive two-CD collection of songs influenced by the lifework of six people who have shown us the beauty of the natural world as well have warned us of the damage that human beings can create through overuse, through destruction, and neglect.  Not only has Mike Holober composed and arranged the music, he has also composed letters in the mindsets of Rachel Carson, Wendell Berry, Sigurd Olson, as well as Castleton Tower in Utah to Terry Tempest Williams, from a tree to Robin Wall Kimmerer, and from a child to the world.  Holober also sets to music a poem from Ansel Adams to his wife Virginia Best Adams – the tenor solo on "Dear Virginia" is played by Virginia Mayhew, the Adams' granddaughter!

Photo: Luke Marantz

Seven of the 17 tracks feature vocals, the vast majority by Brazilian born Jamile Staevie Ayres who first recorded with Holober on his 2021 Sunnyside album "Don't Let Go" featuring his Balancing Act octet.  The blend of her husky tones with the cello of Jody Redhage-Ferber on "Refuge" is quite lovely. Throughout the album, the words pull the listener into the musical multiverse the composer creates. On "Another Summer", Ms. Ayres sings in the voice of Rachel Carson to her closest friend Dorothy Freeman. Two tracks later is "Another Summer Epilogue" which is the imaginary response of Ms. Freeman. Both pieces are truly love letters to each other and the support Ms. Carson felt from her closest friend.  The music Holober creates for these pieces have a classical feel strengthened by the counterpoint and responses of the cello.

There are plenty of powerful musical moments throughout the album.  Chris Potter opens the album with an adventurous tenor sax solo on "Lay of the Land". I mentioned above Ms. Mayhew's work on "Dear Virginia" – the piece features her in an intimate conversation with trumpeter Marvin Stamm and pianist Holober.  The splendid arrangement on the high-powered "Domes" (for Ansel Adams) suggests the influence of Bob Brookmeyer and features the powerful drumming of Jared Schonig, the smart vibes backing of James Shipp, snaky guitar lines from Nir Felder, and great solos from Ben Kono (alto sax) and Scott Wendholdt (trumpet). "Skywoman Falling" (for Robin Wall Kimmerer) opens with Ms. Redhage-Ferber's richly sonorous cello solo before opening into a medium tempo (inspired by Ms. Kimmerer's Native American heritage). As the piece moves forward, there are lovely moments of section playing plus fine solos from Stamm (flugelhorn) and Charles Pillow (alto flute). Note also the background wordless vocals from Ms. Ayres and James Shipp.

The album with the title song.  The lyrics are first sung by Ronan Rigby, tenor saxophonist Jason Rigby's eight year-old son and then is passed on to James Shipp. After a short solo by Carl Maraghi (baritone sax), Ms. Ayres takes over the vocal with guitarist Felder responding beneath her. The tempo slows, young Mr. Rigby returns to sing the song title only and then his father's tenor sax flutters atop the Orchestra and the story comes to a close.

While the message in the lyrics is loud and clear, take your time to absorb the music that Mike Holober has created for the Gotham Jazz Orchestra. Also take the time to read Terry Tempest Williams' "real" letter in the album booklet. Swirl the words and music around in your senses, let the rhythms pull you along and the solos take you away. Do listen and perhaps you'll understand what needs to done for the survival of what the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft called the "Blue Marble".

For more information, go to www.mikeholober.com. To hear more and purchase the album, go to https://mikeholober.bandcamp.com/album/this-rock-were-on-imaginary-letters.

Here's "Tower Pulse" with solos by Chris Potter (tenor sax) and Nir Felder (guitar):

PERSONNEL
Mike Holober - composer, lyricist, piano, Fender Rhodes
Jamile Staevie Ayres - voice
Jody Redhage Ferber – cello
Ronan Rigby – child voice on This Rock We’re On

Saxophones/Woodwinds
Charles Pillow - alto, soprano, flute, alto flute, bass flute, clarinet
Ben Kono - alto, soprano, flute, alto flute, clarinet (flute on Three Words for Snow)
Jason Rigby - tenor, soprano, flute, clarinet
Adam Kolker - tenor, soprano, flute, clarinet
Chris Potter - tenor, clarinet (Lay of the Land, Tower Pulse)
Virginia Mayhew - tenor (Dear Virginia, Dirt Lover’s Almanac)
Carl Maraghi - baritone, bass clarinet

Trumpet/Flugelhorn
Tony Kadleck
Liesl Whitaker
Marvin Stamm
Scott Wendholt
Stuart Mack (Skywoman Falling, Tower Pulse)

Trombones
Matt McDonald
Mark Patterson
Alan Ferber (Erosion, Domes, Boundary Waters)
Jason Jackson (Tides, Dirt Lover’s Almanac, Skywoman Falling)
Sara Jacovino (Lay of the Land, Tower Pulse, This Rock We’re On)
Jeff Nelson - bass trombone

Rhythm Section
Nir Felder - guitar
John Patitucci - bass, electric bass
Jared Schonig - drums
James Shipp - vibraphone, percussion, synth, voice