Review Summary: Feel like flying?
One of my favorite things about music is the way it can speak to you. And sometimes, it speaks to you without saying a word. Enter Matthew Ottignon, the sax savant from the land down under. You won't hear his voice once across the near forty minutes that comprise his latest album
Volant, but you don't have to. The stories the instruments tell will give you all you need to know. The word 'volant' references the ability to fly, particularly among animals. It's certainly an appropriate jumping off point imagery-wise when listening to the understated resilience, triumph and weightlessness a lot of these compositions boast of.
When I trek and skim through songs like "The Third Bardo," I can close my eyes and picture myself flying over an expansive greensward of photosynthesis. I'm not just buoyed by this aerial feat, but by the renewal and victory present in the environment around me. Winter always turns to spring. Storms always end. When one cycle ends, so starts the next. I can't help but be almost prideful for the nature, weathering, quite literally, everything it sustains and still surviving. As Ottignon's saxophone swells, Lauren Tsamouras' piano keys bounce, and Holly Conner's percussion thumps along, I struggle not to be excited by the possibilities that consume my ruminations. As we oscillate towards tracks like the grooving "Rocky Lux", we juxtapose those sensations with much more
stillness, calm, but without losing any of the ambition or largeness of spirit. Continuing on, the tacitly pop-influenced "Singing Bowls" marks a moment to experiment and innovate, guided by Hannah James' poignant acoustic bass. "Rolling and Circling" ends the affair with grandeur and luster from the word 'go.' With Ottignon as the foundation of the whole enterprise, we return to that persistent expressiveness. I'm reminded of the earlier soundscapes I allowed myself to be transported to, and further ponder on their being able to live on. If hills and valleys can reclaim their green, their life, their shine, all while keeping still, how can I not do the same when I have the power to move and explore?
Volant is velvet and it is granite. Soft and subtle, hard and boisterous in fairly equal measure. When Ottignon and company play, you listen, unable to be distracted, unable to not take something away from the endeavor. The man sits an awe-inspiring ten thousand miles away from me at present, and yet we're able to connect. He can impress upon me his artistic and emotional statements, and I can receive them and apply them to my own experience. That's the power and beauty of music. It can comfort, thrill and inspire in a much more immediate and efficient manner than really any other form of art. A two hour movie takes a bit longer to say what a four-minute song can, doesn't it? In the case of Matthew Ottignon and his vibrant brand of instrumental jazz, all you need to do is press 'play' and let the adventure commence.
