Canto

Though closely affiliated with the improv vanguard, pedal steel guitarist and composer Susan Alcorn played country music at Texas beer halls, roadhouses, and honky tonks, then played free and spiritual jazz in New York and Europe. She first traveled to Chile in 2003, studying folk music and languages, and meeting survivors of General Augusto Pinochets oppressive regime. Alcorn returned in November 2022 and recorded Canto with Septeto del Sur, a band of experimentally inclined folk musicians. Their lineup is guitarist/bandleader Luis "ToTo" Alvarez; drummer and cuatro player Pajaro Araya; his brother Pancho Araya playing charango and quena; Rodrigo Bobadilla on flute, quena, zampona, and vocals; Amanda Irarrazabal playing double bass and singing; and Danka Villanueva on violin and vocals. The album was inspired by Alcorns love of nueva cancion, a hybrid political and social folk song style popularized across Latin America during the 1960s by Chilean singer/songwriters Violeta Parra and Victor Jara, Argentinas Mercedes Sosa, and Cubas Silvio Rodriguez. Neuva cancion was banned in 1973, the same year Jara was murdered by police. Opener "Suite Para Todos" introduces a minor-key melody in a slow milonga rhythm. Led by violin, bass, and flutes, its harmonic beauty masks building tension. A flute solo answered by pedal steel, bass, and guitar begins an improvisational dialogue underscoring the melody. The next three tracks make up the suites three sections. "Canto I: ?Donde Estan?" is dedicated to the thousands of South and Central Americans who vanished without a trace between 1970 and 1993. Alcorn states a processional and Alvarez snakes the melody along, bringing in the band. One can hear the same spirit that guided Charlie Hadens haunted Ballad of the Fallen. "Canto II: Presente: Sueno de Luna Azul" slowly develops an almost ceremonial dialogue between pedal steel and double bass. When the band joins in -- violin, electric guitar, percussion, and arco bass -- their processional leads directly, via the cuatro, to improvisational space as the ensemble creates dramatic, spontaneous movement. "Canto III: Lukax" is titled for improviser and former political prisoner Lukax Santana. It delivers tense, sudden, jarringly disruptive dialogues between Alcorn and Septeto del Sur as they dart between periods of musical tension, release, humor, and calm. "Mercedes Sosa," named for the great Argentine folk singer/songwriter, was originally recorded for 2000s Uma, Alcorns debut. Here, its intricate melody is rendered with economy by strings and woodwinds as the bassist introduces Alcorns jaunty solo in contrapuntal exchange with Irarrazabals arco bass, Bobadillas flute, and Villanuevas lithe, sad violin. The closer is a reinvention of Jaras "El Derecho de Vivir en Paz." It begins in waltz tempo as a folk song. Tenderness and openness are offered in Irarrazabals authoritative, mournful singing. Septeto del Sur ratchets up the dynamic with electric guitars and clattering percussion before Alcorn returns them to the melody under chorale chanting and singing. Canto ups the ante posited by 2020s glorious Pedernal in that it displays uncommon musical richness, as well as communication and adventure. ~ Thom Jurek