Chaos and confusion are among the cogs rotating the world, these days. We wake to news of war, scandal and death, of certain someones beating their chests, and tune it out as often as not (Sometimes it’s best to ignore the nonsense.) Too, days stretch and condense, with actions—our own and others—rippling across the sea of time at odd intervals. The consequences are often good, of course, but on occasion they become akin to the undertow and/or rip currents, pulling swimmers beneath the water’s surface and/or away from shore. The “under toad,” as John Irving dubbed it in The World According to Garp, is a cagey beast.
The freeform jazz found on Live at Moldejazz, a concert recording from Amalie Dahl’s Dafnie, serves as an artful catharsis for the craziness of modern life. In essence, a tiny pebble spurs a towering tsunami; the music rises and recedes, rolls across the open sea of melody, making landfall as a giant wave that, in a blink, transforms into a warm bath and then back again. The seven tracks are tumultuous in spots, contemplative in others, and compelling from start to end.
For those unfamiliar with Dahl, she’s a saxophonist who’s played with Ingebrigt Håker Flaten’s (Exit) Knarr, while leading a combo of her own; for the concert, which took place last July, she expanded her quintet to a dozen, including two double bassists and two drummers, and supplemented her alto sax with trumpet, trombone, baritone sax, flute, and synths. In some respects, the result is a cacophony of sound that’s grounded in rhythm, silence and song; Dahl’s sax soars above the din one moment and hides within it the next, while the other instruments flow like wind gusts of varying strength around her. The music seemingly bends back through time, touching memories long thought lost, while also leaning forward to memories yet formed. It makes me think of the closing lines of the poet Dana Gioia’s “Summer Storm”: “And memory insists on pining/For places it never went/As if life would be happier/Just by being different.”
The Old Grey Cat 