Jaguar Harmonics

Anne Waldman: text and vocals
Devin Brahja Waldman: alto saxophone
Ha-Yang Kim: cello
Daniel Carter: trumpet, clarinet, flute, saxophones
Ambrose Bye: sounds and production
CD/MP3 • 2014
Fast Speaking Music
Bandcamp
Amazon

Text from Jaguar Harmonics, person woven of tesserae.
(Post-Apollo Press, 2014)

Listen:
Taran Free Jazz Hour (July 28, 2014) with Anne Waldman, Devin Waldman, Ha Yang Kim, Daniel Carter, and Ambrose bye

The album Jaguar Harmonics is a magical hybrid of richly evocative poetry written and recited by Anne Waldman, set to a landscape of sound by Devin Brahja Waldman, Ha-Yang Kim, Daniel Carter, and Ambrose Bye (at Fast Speaking Music studio in NYC). Here word and music combine to birth a brilliantly contemporary genre that straddles storytelling, opera, and a general free jazz kind of sound.
— Klara du Plessis, écho: a résonance publication, September 17, 2014

Poet Anne Waldman recites her book Jaguar Harmonics over a background of freely improvised jazz performed by Montreal sax player Devin Brahja Waldman, Ha-Yang Kim on cello, Ambrose Bye on electronics, and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter (with whom Devin has recorded previously). The words are often striking and delivered with conviction; the music suits them very well without getting into a literal translation of them. And never, in the course of this 75-minute disc, have I wished for the poet to stop talking or for the musicians to stop playing. It all fits together and flows naturally. Bravo.
— Monsieur Delire, August 19, 2014

Track listing:

1. Connection (04:20)
2. A Person Woven (08:59)
3. Earth of Shine (03:31)
4. Beyond the Canopy (03:10)
5. Of The Asteroid (12:15)
6. Won’t Un-Study (08:13)
7. Bounce (05:55)
8. Burst (04:49)
9. What Men Might Be (03:18)
10. Cross Lines (04:57)
11. Tesserae (01:51)
12. Oscillate (06:01)
13. Recon (03:35)

Is anything central? Can you strive? Can you cure? Are you votive identity?  The baby jaguar is blind at first. What are your roots and what are your severances and what do they constitute of imagination? do you stalk can you heal will you climb. What is the link to the link of the trance of the trace of your heat-coil. Now you are quick, soon you will be dead. Ancestor! If roots are rural and you are on the ground barefoot, or if they are urban and you bend inwardly (your concrete sepulcher) will that help with the ground turning underneath your feet in jungle metaphor? And if the scene changes and suddenly abruptly something is riven—imploding rhythm—from you—then what? A new planet? What is being relational when you hardly know the kinetics of your own chemistry. And where you are from but you know goes back, back with all the other visitors who crowd your head. What will support mind in the longest sweetest quivering night you live and notate within, and how will you move to caution others: be still, be very still…. it’s dawn in the adventure, space and time.

Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Ambrose Bye at Fast Speaking Music Studio in New York City.
Images: Images by Mariana Luna.
Design: HR Hegnauer.

Special thanks to Simone Fattal, Alystyre Julian, Walt Whitman, Angel Dominguez, and Pachamama.