TRACK LISTING
1. River (I) Departure
2. Call & Response
3. Arrival
4. River (II) Dark Horizon
5. Storm Rising
6. River (III) Aftermath
7. Forsaken
8. Brother Fifi
9. River (IV) Beautiful Land
10. Domboshava
11. Kampala Moon
12. River (V) Connection
13. Last Night at the Mannenberg
14. River (VI) Coming Home
RELEASE INFORMATION
An epic world-jazz suite by the Guggenheim Award-winning pianist/composer, Ryan Cohan. Through seamless ensemble work and colorfully dynamic soloing, Cohan leads his septet on a musical safari of original compositions inspired by the emotional impact of his life-changing Rhythm Road/State Department tour through Africa.
PRESS RELEASE
A river is both a place and a journey, intimately connected to the locales along its route while moving inexorably forward. On his fifth CD, The River (2013, Motéma Music), pianist/composer Ryan Cohan navigates a path that courses through East Africa and his native Chicago, reflecting the sights, sounds and emotions along its shoreline. In its sweeping musical landscape, Ryan’s vivid suite fluidly commingles the ancient and the modern, the spontaneous and the impressionistic, the cerebral and the passionate.
Cohan’s most ambitious work to date, The River was inspired by a trip that his quartet made to the tumultuous regions of Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and the Democratic Republic of Congo sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. Chosen by a panel that included State Department officials as well as Wynton Marsalis and other members of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Cohan was chosen as a musical ambassador in the tradition of Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and Duke Ellington, all of whom toured conflict-riven nations to spread goodwill through jazz.
“It was really about connecting to people through the music,” Cohan says of the tour. “We didn’t know what to expect, because in some of these countries they were being fed propaganda on what the U.S. is about. But once we started playing, it was really incredible how the tone and the tenor of the rooms would change dramatically. It was real; we experienced it in every country that we visited.”
Cohan has since undertaken three more tours under the State Department’s auspices, taking his band to Europe and the Middle East. But that initial voyage to Africa made such a powerful impression that he decided to depict it via the concert-length suite that comprises The River. The ensemble is expanded to a septet, with woodwind players Geof Bradfield and John Wojciechowski, trumpeter Tito Carrillo, bassist Lorin Cohen, drummer Kobie Watkins, and percussionist Samuel Torres.
That expanded palette allows Cohan to explore his expansive orchestral ambitions, as he draws upon influences from Ellington, Gil Evans and Vince Mendoza to Ravel and Debussy. He achieves effects through his gifted ensemble that showcase his stunning arrangements, recently spotlighted on a larger scale in his orchestral arrangements for vibraphonist Joe Locke’s concert recording Wish Upon A Star, which featured Lincoln’s Symphony Orchestra.
The suite, commissioned by Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works program, takes on the form of a river journey. Each movement reflects a stop on the adventure, with improvised solo and duo intervals representing areturn to the ceaseless momentum of the river itself. It begins, as any journey must, with a departure: a virtuosic solo turn by Cohan that is by turns elegant and explosive, flowing as a river does from the placid to the turbulent. The same theme recurs in the suite’s closing piece, “Coming Home,” here expressed by the full ensemble and reflecting the rich tapestry of sensations and experiences now behind them.
The dialogue at the heart of improvised music from African folk drumming to cutting-edge jazz is vigorously evidenced on “Call and Response,” one of several pieces inspired by the opportunities Cohan found in each city to perform with local musicians. “Arrival” moves to the rhythms of Rwanda’s bustling streets, while “Last Night at the Mannenberg” brims with the exhilaration of playing at a famous Zimbabwe club in front of 250 eager listeners crammed into a space meant for 175, with the experience of hearing a Shona mbira choir earlier in the day.
“It’s a very spiritual thing, playing with local musicians and experiencing how music is part of their culture,” he says. “It’s part of their daily lives and their religion. Seeing how music fit into their cultures and their communities was really inspiring. Often we couldn’t speak the same language, but an incredible conversation and understanding would happen immediately through the music.”
The beauty of the African countryside is also portrayed, the moon over Uganda inspiring the tender and lustrous “Kampala Moon,” or the portrait of a breathtaking landscape on “Domboshava,” named for an historic national park in Zimbabwe that features 10,000-year-old cave paintings and 360 ̊ views of Harare from atop red rock formations.
The Dark Continent’s darker aspects come to the fore on the taut, ferocious “Storm Rising,” inspired by the tensions that scar the region from Zimbabwe’s brutal dictatorship to the frightening lawlessness of Congo. A visit to Rwanda’s genocide museum brought the country’s horrific past to life, resulting in the haunting “Forsaken,” highlighted by Cohan’s somber, sharp- angled bursts and Carrillo’s mournful wail. One of the genocide’s survivors is sketched in “Brother Fifi,” which recalls Randy Weston in its blend of African rhythms and vibrant swing.
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus wrote that you can never step into the same river twice, for it’s never the same river and you’re never the same person. As Cohan wades into this particular river, he brings to it his experiences working with many notable artists and jazz luminaries such as Freddie Hubbard, Curtis Fuller, Paquito D’Rivera, and Ramsey Lewis; four prior CDs of original music that have met with critical acclaim, with the latest, Another Look, hailed as “a model for modern jazz piano albums” by ICON
Magazine; and two decades of compositional brilliance that have led to a Guggenheim Fellowship and grants from Chamber Music America, American Music Center and the Aaron Copland Foundation, among others.