Caroline Davis

Portals Volume 2, Returning
Street Date: September 20, 2024
Label: Intakt

Portals, Volume 2: Returning, is a dedication to Caroline Davis' grandmother, Joan “Lady” Anson-Weber, a British poet (1927-2010) who was a direct inspiration for her lifestyle as an artist. Releasing on September 20 on Intakt, Davis wrote the pieces on Portals, Volume 2 for her current quintet, inclusive of diverse voices in the current jazz community: Marquis Hill (trumpet), Julian Shore (piano), Chris Tordini (bass), and Allan Mednard (drums). She invited several guests, including flutist Nicole Mitchell, who Caroline met in Chicago and later worked with as a mentor through CMA’s Performance Plus Grant. Other guests were brought to the table to honor Lady’s poetry with their voices through spoken word and singing; Jen Shyu, Nappy Nina, Julia Easterlin, and Alexa Barchini. With this bounty of expansive musicians, the groups came together at the Bunker Studio in Brooklyn, New York, with engineer Aaron Nevezie at the helm, to manifest the nuanced drum sounds Caroline was seeking for this book of music.

“My understanding of portals is that they are always morphing, transitioning, growing, so it feels like a project that will keep going throughout my years of performing and composing. Recording albums for people I knew in this realm is a deeply emotional process,” commented Davis. 

“Gate of the Year” opens the album, and is an anthemic portrait based on the rhythms of a humourous poem Lady wrote for the gate leading into a magnificent garden. On the next two tracks, “Coming ‘Round” and “Back Again,” we hear Lady’s voice, captured from VHS movies from her home in Darien, Connecticut. The latter is a tender moment with Caroline as a baby, encouraged in the water by Lady and her dad. In the studio, the sounds of Lady’s voice were played as prompts to spontaneously improvise together, and in post production, the tracks were overlayed with her voice. “One of the most important lessons I learned from Nicole Mitchell, who was a mentor throughout the process of writing this music, is to cultivate a vibe, and to let it guide you through rehearsals, studio time, and shows,” Davis shared.

In “Olympian Air” we are introduced to guest vocalist, Jen Shyu, who recites the namesake poem by Anson-Weber. In this piece, the romping motion of interlocking parts and tenacity of the horns eventually gives way to the power of the piano voice, the fat gods from the poem. “Kites” features Julia Easterlin (voice) and Mike King (synthesizers, organ). Listeners will get a sense of Caroline’s personal journey of getting to know her grandmother; experiences of beauty, strife, and loathing. The apex arrives with “I’ll help you fly a kite for loathing,” bringing new ways of healing through a portal to help her grandmother who veered away from openly sharing her struggles.

“Only the Names are Changed, Part 1” breathes life into the trio (Julian Shore, Chris Tordini, Allan Mednard), harkening back to textures of grief explored in Portals 1 through bowed acoustic bass. Listeners will hear Lady’s voice for the last time on “Darien,” inviting us to “come on down,” as she walks through the garden, past her cats and trees, onward to the lake where there are two fisherman, fishing for catfish. In “Only the Names are Changed, Part 2,” rhythms of her rhymes were assigned to the horn voices, jaggedly supported by the trio. In the latter half of the piece, a dense anthem oscillates with Nappy Nina’s verses, inspired by the poem’s message that history repeats itself.

Jen Shyu opens “Everlasting Fire” with Middle Stage, a short verse by Lady, leading into Alexa Barchini’s soulful vocal offering. Davis’s lyrics question the paths between light and dark, sun and moon, respect and scorn, leading the path into Atlantis, a set of verses about Lady’s experiences in London during World War II. “City Flora” is a grooving walk through New York, a place Anson-Weber visited often, with plants growing out of the sidewalk as metaphors for not making it in the big city. Nicole Mitchell, Chris Tordini, and Davis had Lady’s poem, “Oblivion,” on the music stand in the studio, as a prompt for this improvisation. Portals 2 closes with “Cover Up,” a journey through verses about trust, recited by Jen Shyu, and landing in a lilting melody that turns a blind eye to a world crashing down, as we continue our dance into the light.

Portals, Volume 2: Returning is a visitation to a family member who was responsible for instilling creative energy in Caroline’s music, an honoring of tradition through bloodlines, a way to explore poetry in less obvious ways of simple recitation. “I hope listeners will gain strength and grace, two of the best qualities from my grandmother that I try to embody in my own right,” the artist concludes. 

##

Caroline Davis' Alula
Street Date: October 13, 2023
Label: Ropeadope

Captivity is the powerful new album by alto saxophonist, composer and activist Caroline Davis’ Alula. Her first social justice album, Captivity situates Davis’ electro-free compositions alongside the lives of eight heroes who kept hope alive through incarceration. Augmented by turntablist Val Jeanty, bassist Chris Tordini and drummer Tyshawn Sorey, as well as special guests Qasim Naqvi and Ben Hoffmann, Captivity is a vital addition to Davis’ sprawling discography that aims to reflect, interrogate and amplify the essential conversation around incarceration, the prison industrial complex, and abolition.

Throughout history, the jazz community has traditionally played a major role in contributing to social justice efforts, and has often engaged in civil rights work even before certain movements were formally established. Through coded lyrics by blues singers like Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, to Nina Simone’s impactful lyrics in “Mississippi Goddam” and “Young, Gifted, and Black”, to Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite, to Terri Lyne Carrington’s recent gathering, “Music for Abolition”; jazz and creative musicians have always been present, creating artistic works to protest injustices and speak truth to power. Caroline Davis’ latest album stands on the shoulders of these influences, providing creative insight on the injustices present in the system of incarceration in America, and highlights the undeniable strength of those who have been, and some who are still, incarcerated. 

Davis’ first encounters with the prison system began around 10 years old, when she and her family would visit her uncle, incarcerated in Sweden. “I will never forget the look of the guards, the smell, the sound of the doors locking, and the look on my uncle’s face. With one glance he communicated an internal acknowledgement that he did something “wrong”, but also, not knowing how to exist in a society that had no interest in helping him grow and change,” she reflects.  “It’s as if he was never given a chance once he made a mistake, he was abandoned.” The system tore her family apart, and these experiences left a lasting impact on her. 

All of Davis’ recent recordings have been built around larger themes including her highly praised 2021 album Portals Volume 1: Mourning (Sunnyside), which deftly dealt with the loss of her father and Alula (New Amsterdam, 2019), an electro-jazz scientific study on the alula structure of bones and feathers on most bird wings which garnered acclaim from The New York Times, Bandcamp and more. When the pandemic hit in 2020, Davis dedicated the free time she suddenly had to learning all about incarceration, its systematic underpinnings and its history. “Making this album helped me deal with the emotions I felt in my family and to relate to others who have felt similar emotions.” 

Inspired by authors Maya Angelou, Jennifer Teege, and Rabindranath Tagore, who have written allegorical musings about birds in cages to relate to cultural and societal issues, the 2023 update of Alula still upholds the bird imagery, but now draws upon the metaphor of their potential captivity as a symbol of incarceration. The music, which ranges from soulful and spacious, to bombastic and brazen, is also inspired by the correspondence Davis has had with people who have been, or are still, incarcerated such as Keith LaMar, Jalil Muntaqim, Susan Burton, and Joyce Ann Brown “They live more richly and deeply than any people I’ve ever met.” Captivity is an engrossing sonic journey featuring virtuosic musicianship, and a rich juxtaposition of free improvisation, jazz, and electronics. Bolstered by carefully selected, impactful samples and enhanced by Davis’ empathetic approach, Captivity is a heartfelt marvel of creative expression that breathes new life into untold stories.