Pianist, composer, and vocalist Mavis Pan announces new album Rising, a series of vignettes that chronicles her journey through and out of tribulations, out October 4, 2024
Musicians know well that the freedom of live performance, improvisation, and collaboration inspires a chain reaction of creativity. For award-winning pianist, composer, and vocalist Mavis Pan, this statement could not be truer. Pan found herself ecstatic in January 2023 when, after a three-year hiatus from touring due to the international effects of the global pandemic, borders reopened and she took her quintet on tour to Saudi Arabia. Shortly after this renewed elation of live performance, Pan experienced a dramatically different emotional turn. On her return journey to New York, Pan visited her home country of Taiwan to unite with her Father, whom she had not seen in years. Since her previous visit, Pan’s Father had suffered from a stroke and the debilitating isolation of the pandemic’s travel limitations. This heart-wrenching experience and life shift impacted Pan heavily and caused her to think back with nostalgia upon her life.
Pan’s experiential trifecta of exhilaration, demoralization, and retrospection led her to create Rising, a mosaic of works chronicling the ebb and flow of life’s highs and lows and Pan’s journey to rise above it all. Releasing on October 4, the album, which Pan co-produced with acclaimed woodwind player Ted Nash, features an all-star lineup including Nash (tenor saxophone, flute, and clarinet), Geoff Burke (alto and soprano saxophones, alto flute, and clarinet), Mark Wade (bass), Jared Schonig (drums), and Pan herself on piano and voice.
For Pan, Rising stands as far more than an album, for the music on it is akin to thumbing through a history book of her life. A collection of 12 pieces (13 on the digital deluxe edition), Rising comprises a selection of works that are carefully curated and span a 20-year period of the artist’s life and compositional oeuvre. Each piece is an imprint of a moment, a person, a place, or a challenge that Pan has faced and overcome. “Jazz is about being ‘in the moment,’ and I set out to capture each fleeting moment with a song,” Pan says. “There is no better way for a composer to express her longings and frustrations than putting fingers to keyboard and notes on paper.” Rising undoubtedly recounts a vast array of moments and emotions. With pieces that encapsulate the joy and thrill of being welcomed as a “diva” on her Saudia Arabian tour; to returning to the almost magnetic draw of New York; to recounting the obstacles she faced as a woman of color and immigrant upon her first arrival in America; to the world-changing consequences of her Father’s stroke and making peace with her transformation from being little girl whom her father loved to spoil to being his caretaker, this album is a pouring out of Pan’s heart – and masterfully painting that overflow onto an ebullient musical canvas.
The album’s title is derived from Pan’s experience doing exactly what its name signifies: rising despite adversity. “Rising indicates victory,” Pan says, “of rising from a deep emotional and spiritual pit.” Pan’s victory is broad and multi-faceted, as her obstacles have been numerous: facing the unique discrimination of being a female foreigner in New York; the repeated rejections and closing of doors throughout her musical career before finally making it; and even her interpersonal journey of love with its cycles of heartache and joy. Through all of this, Pan found that the key to regaining one’s footing and climbing upwards yet again is to be surrounded by earnest community. “Among all the setbacks and despair, I was surrounded by dear
friends and loved ones who have shown me great love and encouraged me to pick myself back up again,” Pan says. “Coming out from the emotional rock bottom, I continue to move forward and upward with the spirit of resilience.”
Musically, Pan’s new album draws influence from her mastery of the genres of jazz and Western Classical music, yet marries it with the sounds of the locations which she has visited. “This album is a musical imprint of the places I have traveled to and special people I have encountered and become inspired by,” Pan says. “It ranges from Afro funk to French cinematic valses, from Spanish tango to Middle Eastern tarab (musical ecstasy), plus nostalgic Taiwanese folk songs.” Often, the way this amalgamation of styles manifests is through the use of large-scale classical form, structure, and orchestrational prowess, that maintains room for and comes alive through the insertion of jazz improvisation and its ever-iconic rhythm section. As Pan describes it, “It is almost like contemporary chamber music with mixed meter, complex contrapuntal dialogue between different voices, and harmonies derived from modal and atonal structure, yet combined with an ethnic vivaciousness.” Drawing stylistically from Western Classical luminaries such as Bach, Chopin, Ravel, Debussy, and Bartok, and merging it with the styles of contemporary jazz icons with whom she has interacted such as Toshiko Akiyoshi and Lionel Loueke – both of whom further encouraged her to incorporate her ethnic heritage into her music – Pan has developed a distinct compositional style that is uniquely her own. “These are the songs of a migrant bird,” she says.
The album’s title track, “Rising”, was fittingly composed during Pan’s long flight to Saudi Arabia, and is dedicated to her long-standing lyricist, David Keyes (Dean at KAUST University), who made the tour possible. The piece utilizes a slow buildup, akin to Ravel’s Bolero, but uses a Middle Eastern groove as the vehicle upon which it builds. The use of a steady tempo conveys Pan’s message that the process of rising is not a rush to fortune or fame, but a steadfast commitment in faith. This piece features solos by both Ted Nash and Geoff Burke. Contrasting this piece, Pan composed “Falling”, a work that has become one of the bandleader’s favorite compositions on the album. A simple, stately waltz, “Falling” embodies the risk of falling in love, never knowing whether any given moment could lead to bliss or tragedy. At its core, this piece with its slow, French cinema aesthetic subtly outlines the profound undertones of love as it answers the question of whether love is worth the risk it presents. “Falling” was written shortly after an emotional and traumatizing experience Pan went through that led her to almost abandon her pursuit of jazz. “Ultimately, where you fall is where you get up,” Pan says. “Life is a sequence of rising and falling, and the process is not always linear.” Standing distinct against the album’s more pensive and contemplative pieces is the rollicking and invigorating “Seventy times Seven”. Riding an Afro-funk groove in an asymmetrical meter of seven, this piece captures Pan soloing with an unmatched, joyous abandon as she “just let myself go wild on the keyboard instead of thinking in a certain mode.”
With Rising, Mavis Pan gives audiences a vulnerable sonic glimpse into her own life through the use of a two-decade montage. From jubilant celebration to pleading supplication amidst despair, Rising is ultimately a story of hope, made all the more poignant in that all of it is real. With Rising, Pan shows others that the way up, the way to rise, is sometimes to live, to experience, to fall, and to stand once more.
Rising releases independently on October 4th, 2024.