Columbia Icefield: A Silence Opens

While grief is universal to the human experience, its specific manifestations can vary widely within each person who mourns. One of the challenges of the grieving process involves the difficulty of sharing exactly what one is feeling, and it can thus be an isolating experience—ironically, and painfully, at a time when human connection is most needed. Nate Wooley's latest iteration of his Columbia Icefield project involves his own attempt to come to terms with profound loss, both in the passing of fellow trumpeter and mentor Ron Miles in 2022 and in the sudden and unexpected death of his Columbia Icefield colleague, pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn, who passed in 2025 after the initial portion of A Silence Opens was recorded. Wooley's response to Alcorn's death was to gather the rest of the group back together, along with other close friends, to join their voices in mutual remembrance and support, and to find a way to forge ahead. Their resulting musical document is at times a somber one, but there are also rays of hope, resilience and even defiance that also shine through this potent recording.

Columbia Icefield's self-titled debut (Northern Spy, 2019) and follow-up, Ancient Songs of Burlap Heroes (Pyroclastic, 2022), utilized a distinctive instrumental lineup, with Wooley's trumpet supported by guitarist Mary Halvorson and drummer Ryan Sawyer alongside Alcorn's pedal steel guitar. The dual-guitar framework allowed for a range of textures, and the band could move easily from violent eruptions to subdued lyricism. A Silence Opens sees Halvorson stepping aside in favor of fellow guitar maverick Ava Mendoza, who brings an even grittier sound to the music.

As the initial logic of the recording was in tribute to Miles, three of the album's central compositions are his. "Howard Beach," from My Cruel Heart (Gramavision, 1996), is built around an odd-meter funk theme, which takes on a more rock-inflected approach here, largely courtesy of Mendoza's punchy riffs and Sawyer's relentless attack. Alcorn provides a steady undercurrent, while Wooley explores the full range of his horn, from searching lyricism to feverish assaults. "Darken My Door" is from Miles' I Am a Man (Yellowbird, 2017), and the piece's oblique tunefulness is retained amidst the group's abstract reflections. And then there is "You Taste," from Woman's Day (Gramavision, 1997), a hard-hitting blast of rock fury that is a reminder of Miles' breadth as a composer. Columbia Icefield gives it its due and then some, with all four players releasing their collective power in honoring the trumpeter with ferocious intensity. But even here, the album's elegiac spirit emerges through Wooley's affecting unaccompanied statement as the track comes to a close. Wooley's own composition, "We Say Goodbye Twice," possesses a similar poignancy, this time with Alcorn's ethereal opening setting the tone for the piece's expansive emotional trajectory.

When the group's remaining members reconvened in the studio after Alcorn's passing, they took one of her favorite anthems, Victor Jara's "El Derecho," and interspersed it between the album's other tracks. The version which bookends the album is spare and haunting, limited to Wooley's whistling and quiet shuffling of feet; elsewhere Mendoza sings the tune a cappella. And for yet another rendition, the group is accompanied by Alcorn's friends, as Halvorson, Ingrid Laubrock, Wendy Eisenberg, Gabby Fluke-Mogul, Laura Ortman, and Patrick Holmes join the rest in singing the tune wordlessly. The use of Jara's song, one which has had significant resonance over the decades from the late 1960s onward as a Chilean protest anthem, is a witness not only to Alcorn's own political consciousness, but also to the unquenchable spirit of endurance which animates A Silence Opens.