A State-of-the-Art, Majestic Big Band Suite From the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra

The world is in a very strange place right now, and some of the least likely candidates are doing herculean work just about everywhere you turn. So anyone who might be surprised that some of this era’s most sweeping, majestic big band jazz would be coming out of Manitoba hasn’t heard the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra album Twisting Ways, streaming at Bandcamp. It’s more symphonic than solo-centric, comprising a couple of suites and a lyrical vehicle for tenor sax.

Pianist David Braid and composer Philippe Côté utilize texts by Lee Tsang in the shapeshifting series of themes in the album’s title suite: the group doesn’t linger long on any of them. Singer Sarah Slean traces a spiritually-inspired narrative about a mythical nightingale and an unseen hand (no, not the one that Adam Smith imagined).

Part one, The Hand follows a big, upward symphonic trajectory. “Has darkness transformed my life?” Slean asks over Braid’s uneasy piano glimmer. The nightingale ponders her “need to succeed” as the enveloping resonance rises behind her. Drummer Eric Platz rings his cymbal bells while bass trombonist D’Arcy McLean pushes the rest of the brass to dig in.

A triumphant flourish signals a pensive Braid piano break. Slean’s nightingale ponders defeat and seeks redemption while he textures fill the space from top to bottom, Braid cutting through tersely. A big swell introduces vibraphonist Stefan Bauer’s eerie cascades; the group take it out with a slow, steady lustre.

A suspensefully dramatic drum break kicks off the brief second segment, a series of emphatic, riffmic (how’s that for a new jazzapeak term?) exchanges between piano and the orchestra, building triumphantly through echo effects to a momentary calm. From there, Braid moves from insistence to spacious lyricism in the solo piano interlude Opening Glimmers

A blustery swing ensues in the epic conclusion, Hope Shadow, colorful motives bouncing from one section of the ensemble to the next, Mozart-style. The group reprise the ominous vibes theme from the opening movement, Braid taking over with a glimmer that stretches from a distant menace to find familiar comfort amid towering brass harmonies. Slean’s nightingale lands home triumphantly: “It shines, softly; it shines, oddly,” but – it shines.

Karly Epp takes over the mic the rest of the way through. She soon finds herself “drifting through clear ether” in Lydian Sky, a vast northern plains tableau, the enveloping lustre of the group serving as a launching pad for an unhurried, rising and falling Mike Morley tenor sax solo. The final number is Côté’s Fleur Variation, Epp’s crystalline vocalese serving as a foil to Bauer’s phantasmagorical vibes as the group gather steam, through robust, staggered, brassy counterpoint, a tantalizingly chromatic solo from bassist Karl Kohut up to a misty, oceanic swirl worthy of Debussy.

This is one of the most ambitiously memorable big band albums in recent months, a triumph of inspired playing by a group that also includes saxophonists Neil Watson, Sean Irvine. Shannon Kristjanson, Jon Stevens, Paul Balcain. Lauren Teterenko and Ken Gold; trumpeters Jeff Johnson, Shane Hicks, Richard Boughton, Richard Gillis and Andrew Littleford; trombonists Joel Green, Jeff Presslaff, Keith Dyrda and Francois Godere.