While Looking Up

2012年、銃乱射事件で愛娘を失った悲劇から8年余り
強い意志を持って音楽活動を続けるジミー・グリーンの新作

ジミー・グリーン、2年半ぶりとなる新作リリース。

2012年12月14日、サンディフック小学校銃乱射事件に、愛娘アナが巻き込まれてしまったことにより、人生が激変してしまったグリーン。その悲しみは、はかり知れないものですが、数々のミュージシャンや、仲間から励ましを受け、2014年に、娘を思い、多くの仲間と共に『Beautiful Life』を制作してリリース。2017年の『Flowers - Beautiful Life, Volume 2』を経て、本作につながってきました。

「この『While Looking Up』は、自分たちが今生きている時代を示している」と語るジミー・グリーン。「娘を理不尽な事件によって失った悲劇によって自分たち家族が歩んだ日々を考えると共に、現在、国や社会が、正常な状況から、カオスに陥っているのを感じるが、絶望感を覚えるのは簡単なこと。幻滅してしまうのではなく、上を向いていくこと( の大切さ)を思い出す」と語るグリーン。

メンバーには、実質的な初リーダー作から共演しているアーロン・ゴールドバーグを始め、ステフォン・ハリス、ラーゲ・ルンド、リューベン・ロジャース、ケンドリック・スコットと、現代の才能が集結。

しなやかなバンド・サウンドが、今のジミー・グリーンの心境を語るようで、心打たれます。

On 2020s While Looking Up, saxophonist Jimmy Greene offers more of his deeply spiritual and joyful post-bop jazz. The album arrives after Greenes two previous releases, 2014s Beautiful Life and 2017s Flowers: Beautiful Life, Vol. 2, both of which found him working through his grief over the death of his six-year-old daughter in the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. While often emotionally heavy to listen to, those albums found Greene tapping into a deep well of love for his daughter and transforming his sadness into hope for the future. Its that transformative sense of hope that he brings to While Looking Up. Intended as a musical antidote to the social and political divisiveness of the years leading up to and following the 2016 U.S. presidential election, While Looking Up is a buoyant album, with moments of soft-spoken strength, measured defiance, and an underlying feeling of gratitude. The album also finds Greene looking even further back in time to his 2009 breakthrough Mission Statement; an album that found him coming into his own as both a bandleader and improvisor. Joining him here are several musicians who played on that album, including guitarist Lage Lund, bassist Reuben Rogers, and vibraphonist Stefon Harris. Also joining him here are longtime associates in drummer Kendrick Scott and pianist Aaron Goldberg. Together, they play with an empathy and intuitive flow that close friends often have. Theres a vibrant, rhythmic quality to many of these tracks, like the opening rendition of Cole Porters So in Love with its minor-key flamenco groove. Greene also often sets up his songs with inventive intros, like having Lund play a one-note cadence against Rogers chorded basslines for the frenetic Always There. Similarly, Scott and Rogers kick off Overreaction with a propulsive, swinging pattern before Greene, Lund, and Goldberg overlay an angular melody. There are also quieter, if no less rhythmically interesting moments, including the languid Steadfast, with its delicate counterpoint between Goldberg and Greene. April 4th is yet another moment of quiet reserve as Greene overlays a gorgeously harmonized flute, sax, and clarinet melody in loving tribute to his daughter. Theres also an inspired, slow-burn ballad reworking of Whitney Houstons I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me), and a soulful take on the Billie Holiday-associated standard Good Morning Heartache that evokes the yearning, burnished styles of Dexter Gordon and Ben Webster. In keeping with the adage that you need to look backwards to move forwards, While Looking Up is the sound of Greene bringing all of his creative and personal experiences to bear in fresh and uplifting ways. ~ Matt Collar