Arise

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On If You Knew Her, Zara McFarlane reworked Junior Murvin and Lee "Scratch" Perry's "Police & Thieves" and Duke Reid's Nora Dean-fronted "Angie La La," reggae classics that further exhibited the jazz vocalist's genetic and artistic connections to Jamaica. For her more adventuresome follow-up and third album overall, Arise, McFarlane digs deeper into her Afro-Caribbean roots with much of the same crew from her prior sessions, led by drummer and producer Moses Boyd with the likes of saxophonist Binker Golding and pianist Peter Edwards. This time, McFarlane and company reconfigure "Peace Begins Within" into a driving, tightly controlled post-bop groove with the singer's upper register deployed in the chorus to dazzling effect, as moving here as it is in the Dean original. For the Congos' "Fisherman," accompanied primarily by only strings and piano, McFarlane proves that bass pressure isn't required to provide weight. It's somewhat ironic, then, that two of the album's finest originals -- burning perseverance anthems "Fussin' and Fightin'" and "Freedom Chain" -- are reggae to the core, translatable from an intimate hideout to a sound system. Other moments travel far afield from McFarlane's prior sessions. Not one of them is disposable. "Silhouette" leads with almost four minutes of Shabaka Hutchings' bass clarinet wisps, with McFarlane arriving toward the end to substantively honor her cultural lineage. "Allies or Enemies" is a quietly accosting fusion of scat singing, doo wop, and folk, while "Stoke the Fire" -- the most illuminating evidence of the singer's versatility -- is an intricately layered soul-rock ballad of sorts. The program unfortunately doesn't include McFarlane's update of Max Roach and Oscar Brown, Jr.'s "All Africa," the 10" and digital release of which preceded the album by three months. ~ Andy Kellman