JALEN BAKER

REPAVED

Cellar Music

Jalen Baker, vibraphone/composer; Gabriel Godoy, bass; Gavin Moolchan, drums; Paul Cornish, piano; Alexandria DeWait, flute; Tia Allen, viola; Reenat Pinchas, cello; Yoojin Park & Chiara Jamila, violin.

With this new music, Jalen Baker honors his city’s 3^rd Ward and Houston’s historic Black neighborhoods. He celebrates his Texas family history that dates back four generations. Baker’s popular quintet, with a string quartet, embraces the album’s title, “Repaved.”  It’s a modern jazz suite of compositions that document the changing landscape of Baker’s neighborhood.

The opening tune, “Antioch (The Beginning)” was composed by Baker to honor Texas’s first Black Baptist church founded by once enslaved people right after emancipation.

The tune “John Henry” was so pretty that I had trouble relating it to the legendary story of the freed slave, John Henry, who was a mighty man with a very strong legacy. The legend of John Henry (a freed man who was not from Texas but is said to have worked in West Virginia) gained notoriety for driving his 10-pound hammers and drilling them into rock like a human machine.  I expected this composition to be more forceful and exciting.  But maybe the John Henry that Baker is referring to is another man and not this towering Black, super-strong legendary figure.

A song Baker calls “City on the Water” is another beautiful composition.  The string section soars!  The viola of Tia Allen is rich and sets the scene for Alexandria DeWait to add a flute solo that inspires my imagination. I can picture looking out on the water by the Houston Ship Channel or perhaps Lake Houston that is located northeast of downtown or I could be sitting by one of several local bayous that crisscross the city.   Towards the end of this song, Jalen Baker is broadly featured on his vibes.

When a string section is added to his production, it softens the sound. After the string section introduction, the bass of Gabriel Godoy soaks up the spotlight during an arrangement of Bakers tune called, “Freedman.”   Paul Cornish explores an improvised piano solo, followed by Baker’s vibraphone brilliance.

“Kashmere” is infused with the energy I’ve been hoping to hear. It’s quite modern and contemporary, with a melody that breaks into shattered staccato pieces.  Baker steps in after one such excursion and solos on his vibraphone.  He and the Cornish piano player take turns exploring the chord changes, alternating several bars, like “trading fours” but longer.

The Duke Ellington/Thelonius Monk composition “Bemsha Blues” takes another direction. It doesn’t feel like a blues, and once again it lies in the “laid-back” category, even when Baker double-times his mallets and sends the vibraphone notes screaming into space. When Paul Cornish double-times his solo, I get my wish.  The band runs with him like Kentucky Derby race horses. I finally receive the energy I’ve been longing for on this medley of music.

Reviewed by Dee Dee McNeil

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