Anthem of Unity is guitarist
Joel Harrison's 25th outing as a leader. His catalog reflects a kaleidoscopic approach to writing and arranging that employs variety in concept, genre, and harmonic and rhythmic invention. The three-volume
Free Country series (that began in 2003) showcases covers and originals associated with country and Americana music. 2019's
Still Point - Turning World offered a simultaneous exploration of spiritual jazz, Indian Carnatic music, free improv, and post-bop. 2020's
America at War was a musical mediation on militarism and national identity that wed rock, jazz, funk, and improvisation. 2022's
Joel Harrison & the Stardust Reunion Band contained a program of original rock and R&B songs delivered by various singers. While
Anthem of Unity bears
Harrison's unmistakable playing signature, the music is, in essence, a blowing session showcasing a stellar quartet working across post-bop, soul jazz, funk hard bop, and blues.
Harrison's sidemen include drummer
Jack DeJohnette, saxophonist/flutist
Greg Tardy, and
Gary Versace on Hammond B-3.
The title track opener was inspired by a late mentor, guitarist
Mick Goodrick (who also worked with
DeJohnette). Composed the day before the session, the tune's architecture weds a NOLA second-line organ and drum groove that crisscrosses gospel.
Tardy joins
Harrison in melodic interplay and, chorus by chorus, it becomes joyfully, poignantly transcendent. "Survival Instinct" is noirish post-bop with a knotty, blue-tinged head and dazzling backbeat work from
DeJohnette. There are two standards included in the track list:
Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin" is rendered in skittering waltz time as
Tardy and
Harrison harmonize the melody with grace and subtlety.
Sonny Rollins' "Doxy" is delivered with a layer of easy, gritty NOLA jazz-funk, (think
the Meters with
Alvin "Red" Tyler joining on tenor sax).
Harrison's solo is all lue funk, and his greasy interplay with
Tardy and
DeJohnette is as canny as it is welcoming. "Today Is Tomorrow's Yesterday" is a fleet, knotty post-bop groover with killer solos from
Tardy and
Versace. The first minute and a half of "Parvati" is a furious drum solo before
Harrison's composition weds Carnatic modalism to Americana and swinging post-bop. The interlocked engagement by
Versace,
Tardy, and
Harrison is outlined and given heady rhythmic ballast by
DeJohnette's frenetic playing. "Migratory Birds" features
Tardy on flute hovering over wafting, proggish organ; sparse, nocturnal guitar lines; and propulsive, dynamically controlled beats. Closer "Mohawk Valley Peace Dance" is a funky, rock-based stroller that sounds like
Booker T & the MG's meeting
War as a riffing B-3's joins reverbed, psychedelic, wah-wah guitars atop
Tardy's souled-out, wildly exploratory saxophone and
Harrison's bluesy, funky vamps. While "groove" and feel are central to all eight tunes on
Anthem of Unity, rhythmic and harmonic invention in the group's interplay add heft, hooks, textual dimension, and balance. ~ Thom Jurek