There isn’t much I am at liberty to share so far of the debut of María Grand. I am still digesting Magdalena which is not yet excerpted or streaming.
Immediately, without any expectations and within a few bars I liked what I was hearing. Join me then instead to walk and bear the talk if you are going to hang out for a few minutes to an earlier 2017 pre-debut shorter release example by the free player, above in the Dimitri Louis photograph and playing, click, on TetraWind.
Zeroing in for more specifics as to dialect if you are a Steve Coleman fan like me you will be curious and probably a little bit encouraged at this player who is within the MBASE innovator’s orbit in terms of metre and sonic construction and yet has carved out her own sound. Coleman casts a giant shadow on contemporary music and has done since the 1980s it is worth repeating.
Around for a while on the Brooklyn scene old news very possibly among taste makers in New York the headlines I am guessing will only get bigger once Magdalena is released in May if there is any justice and she is able to tour beyond New York.
A Swiss born millennial, tenor saxophonist-vocalist Grand is joined on this point of departure collectively by pianists David Bryant and Fabian Almazan, bassist Rashaan Carter, drummer Jeremy Dutton, guitarist Mary Halvorson, and spoken word artists Jasmine Wilson and Amani Fela.
Exploring, according to publicity material “modern family relationships through the lens of Egyptian and early Christian myths, connecting them to the pioneering work of family therapist Virginia Satir” Grand frames her music within “a non-hierarchical power structure” a “collective conversation” inherent in her music making thinking.
There are links to the saxophonist’s website firstly here; and secondly, her label’s. To sum up: someone whose music is so worth immersing yourself in to familiarise yourself with as a first option and to turn up to again when the record is actually out to discover for yourself what this bit of buzz is all about. Watch this space.