Mary Halvorson: About Ghosts

It has become more than an urban legend that Brooklyn's genius-in-residence Mary Halvorson is supernaturally up to something. Some new route around something else. On her second resiliency test of the year—her first, the fiery Bone Bells (Pyroclastic, 2025) alongside hot-house pianist Sylvie Courvoisier still rattles the playlist—Halvorson's About Ghosts tells of wide open spaces with a wide open lens. Its intricate inner architecture is so comfortably ethereal that you sway freely within its charm and frenzy.

About Ghosts is about what we have come to expect (and maybe take for granted) from the mercurial Halvorson, whose recipe reflects her taste for now. About Ghosts may very well turn out to be the fleet thinker's most lyrical and expansive set. Which says a whole lot of something when considering the recent flood of accolades for Amaryllis & Belladonna, the notoriously animated Cloudward (Nonesuch, 2022, 2024) and the equally challenging Code  Girl (FireHouse, 2018).

Halvorson assembles her most trusted and tested Amaryllis—vibraphonist Patricia Brennan, bassist Nick Dunston, drummer Tomas Fujiwara trombonist Jacob Garchik and ever evolving trumpeter Adam O’Farrill to the fore—invites saxophonists Immanuel Wilkins and Brian Settles to the party and "Full of Neon" hijacks your day first. Its many ecstatic convolutions, avant-swing, free-trad, culminate and catapult into "Carved From," a fever dream rocker that has Halvorson bending and extending notes hither and yon while Wilkens and Settles shoot for the moon, with Fukiwara not far behind.

"Eventidal" turns the energy generated by "Carved From" on a dime and steadies the unsteady air. The track's quiet languish is held aloft via a floating duet with Brennan, as Halvorson frees the horns to solemnly bring the track to a close. "Absinthian," its jumpy metro meter leading to a post-bop cutting session, packs its barely containable four-plus minutes with enough creative vigor and verve to fill several future musical statements.

The title track slows things down to a cotillion-type pace as Halvorson, Amaryllis and guests take to the dance floor. "Amaranthine" pits an impatient Fujiwara against the recalcitrant Halvorson and Brennan, while O'Farrill and his brother brass and woodwinds seemingly cut their course. And of course they do, to an extent. For About Ghosts, including "Polyhedral"'s brief, frantic burst and the album's musical summary contained within "Endmost" springs from Halvorson's deep well of humanity and the music humans must make to thrive.

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