David Friesen: A Light Shining Through

The music of bassist David Friesen is inspired by two major sources: his ancestral Ukrainian roots and his Christian faith. While the Christian aspect of the inspiration is probably long-term, the familial roots part of the equation seems to have gained traction with Testimony (Origin Records, 2021), a piece recorded with a jazz quartet 2018 in Kiev with the National Academic Symphonic Band Of Ukraine. Expansive in thematic scope and stunningly beautiful, the piece was triumphant. With Friesen pushing a venerable 80 years of age at the time of the music's creation—and with a recording career that reaches back to 1975—Testimony would have made for a marvelous swan song.

But Friesen was not finished, not by the proverbial country mile.

His albums Passage and Day Of Rest (both in 2021, on Origin Records), were presented in a smaller scale that leaned heavily on the bassist's faith, and then This Light Has No Darkness (Origin Records, 2024) hit the shelves—and the CD players and presumably the streaming vehicles. The set was written for a 33-piece orchestra and intended to be presented in Kiev. But war in Ukraine changed the plan, and the project was completed via an adept sampling effort by Kyle Gordon—of movie and television soundtrack fame—and his enormous sample library backing Friesen's jazz trio.

A Light Shining Through plays out in the same playground as Friesen's large ensemble and his programmed large ensemble work, but this time it is jazz with strings. The Kyiv Mozart String Quartet joins the leader and his small jazz ensemble—soprano and tenor saxophonist Joe Manis and percussionists Alex Fantaev and Charlie Doggett on alternating cuts. The jazz guys play alone on nine tunes; the strings accompany them on seven. Everything came together from sessions recorded in 2019 (strings), 2021 and 2023.

Much can be said on the positive side for the freshness of music recorded live (Testimony); but much can also be said for the sort of collaging that went on with the A Light Shining Through. The "over time" aspect of putting together music provides freedom of its own, a deliberative advantage of consideration involved in sculpting of the soundscapes The multiple percussionists—bassist Friesen, in addition to his Hemage bass contributions, also plays percussion and piano throughout—gives the music a folk song feel; the spaciousness of spare instrumentation punctuated by the percussive percolations gives to the presentation a down to earth quality, and the heartfelt feeling of Friesen's faith throughout (the title tune, "My Prayer," "Forgiveness") imbues the work with a gorgeous, incandescent timelessness.

A swan song? Probably not. Friesen is going strong, making the best music of his life.