MARIA SCHNEIDER ORCHESTRA — Data Lords (2020) 2CD | FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Grammy-winning composer, bandleader, and NEA Jazz Master Maria Schneider is an artist and activist who controls virtually every aspect of her music production. Her long-standing opposition to big data companies and digital streaming has been well documented in articles, interviews, and congressional testimony. Since 2003, she has relied on the original crowdfunding label Artist Share to finance her 18-piece orchestra recordings -- Data Lords is the fifth. Over two discs and 11 compositions, this is a striking musical juxtaposition between Schneider's experiential perceptions of the natural world and the artificially mitigated representations of the digital one, offered as a cautionary warning.

Opener "A Word Lost" emerges with Frank Kimbrough's dark piano chords and Jay Anderson's arco bass playing around Ben Monder's rumbling, mournful electric guitar. Elegiac reeds and brass rise up and Rich Perry's tenor sax joins the guitarist in articulating the maelstrom. "Don't Be Evil" -- a reference to Google's original motto -- showcases Monder's spiky guitar contrasted with swirling brass, piano, and bass. "CQ CQ Is Anybody Out There" references ham radio and Morse code as early binary global communication tools. Her rhythms pulse, spelling out "SOS," "power," "greed," and the title phrase. Donny McCaslin's bluesy tenor pleads for human connection, but it's rebuffed by Greg Gisbert's electrified trumpet in a nightmarish meld of ethereal tension, dissonance, and murky ambience from the orchestra. On the title cut (commissioned by the Library of Congress), Schneider's canny use of tone and texture acts as an arbiter between soloists -- Mike Rodriguez on electronically enhanced trumpet and Dave Pietro on alto sax -- in offering a wonderfully wrought if musically violent depiction of a life-or-death street fight between humanity and AI.

Disc two emerges with sharp contrast to its predecessor in a harmonic and rhythmic languages Schneider's fans know well. "Sanzen," named for a Japanese Buddhist temple, is pastoral; its layered, graceful brass ushers in a minimal melody embellished gracefully by Gary Versace's tender, wandering accordion. Schneider wrote "Look Up" with trombonist Marshall Gilkes' emotionally resonant tone in mind. Using pianist Frank Kimbrough's expansive chromatic abilities, she creates a sunny, cinematic piece that celebrates the observer's embrace of the natural world. Set closer "The Sun Waited for Me," is the second of two works inspired by Ted Kooser's poetry (the other is the brief "Braided Together"). Its lilting melody is extended through solos by McCaslin on tenor, and Gilkes' trombone. It reveals limitless and unexpected possibility as reward for engaging and experiencing everyday life actively, directly, and simply. Through Schneider's musical vision, Data Lords portrays the exhausting polarities in our daily lives: While one aspires to pull at the fabric of our humanity, desiring to perfect it by enhancing, remaking, and replicating itself, the actual world of the real reaffirms and enhances our lives with restorative and transformational powers that can be experienced freely. Data Lords is a poignant and pointed jazz masterwork that adds weight and spiritual heft to our existential struggle.
-> This comment is posted on Allmusic by Thom Jurek, follower of our blog 'O Púbis da Rosa' <-
The Digital World    
1-1    A World Lost 9:42
Soloist, Guitar – Ben Monder
Soloist, Tenor Saxophone – Rich Perry
1-2    Don't Be Evil 13:38
Soloist, Bass – Jay Anderson
Soloist, Guitar – Ben Monder
Soloist, Piano – Frank Kimbrough
Soloist, Trombone – Ryan Keberle
1-3    CQ CQ, Is Anybody There? 10:18
Soloist, Tenor Saxophone – Donny McCaslin
Soloist, Trumpet – Greg Gisbert
1-4    Sputnik 8:10
Soloist, Baritone Saxophone – Scott Robinson
1-5        Data Lords 11:06
Soloist, Alto Saxophone – Dave Pietro
Soloist, Trumpet – Mike Rodriguez
Our Natural World    
2-1    Sanzenin 5:46
Soloist, Accordion – Gary Versace
2-2    Stone Song 5:43
Soloist, Soprano Saxophone – Steve Wilson
2-3    Look Up 9:05
Soloist, Piano – Frank Kimbrough
Soloist, Trombone – Marshall Gilkes
2-4    Braided Together 3:59
Soloist, Alto Saxophone – Dave Pietro
2-5    Bluebird 11:11
Soloist, Accordion – Gary Versace
Soloist, Alto Saxophone – Steve Wilson
2-6    The Sun Waited For Me 7:22
Soloist, Tenor Saxophone – Donny McCaslin
Soloist, Trombone – Marshall Gilkes
Credits :
Accordion – Gary Versace
Alto Saxophone, Clarinet, Flute, Alto Flute, Piccolo Flute – Dave Pietro
Alto Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Clarinet, Flute, Alto Flute – Steve Wilson
Bass – Jay Anderson
Bass Clarinet, Contrabass Clarinet, Baritone Saxophone – Scott Robinson
Bass Trombone – George Flynn
Composed By, Conductor – Maria Schneider
Drums, Percussion – Johnathan Blake
Guitar – Ben Monder
Piano – Frank Kimbrough
Tenor Saxophone – Rich Perry
Tenor Saxophone, Flute – Donny McCaslin
Trombone – Keith O'Quinn, Marshall Gilkes, Ryan Keberle
Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Greg Gisbert, Mike Rodriguez, Nadje Noordhuis, Tony Kadleck