Chris Potter: Alive With Ghosts Today

The history of America is haunted by ghosts of the past. These ghosts transform our present-day landscape, our everyday lives, and inform the very core of our existence. On Alive With Ghosts Today (Edition Records, 2026), saxophonist Chris Potter  steps away from the normal high-adrenaline jazz that has signified his recent outings and has instead put together a band designed to feel more like a small-town ensemble, a mixture of jazz and folk, to lead through a suite of tunes that examines the legacy of abolitionist John Brown and his raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859 and begs to ask the question: what have we learned, what can we learn, why are we still, wrestling with these same ghosts from the past?

The ensemble Potter has assembled is the key to the album's success. Bill Frisell plays with a spacious grace that wonderfully supports all the musicians. Frisell blends in seamlessly, sliding between the other instruments and adding his own unique voice to the music; his guitar serves as the counterpoint to Potter's lead lines. It is hard to believe that although drummer Nate Smith  has played with Potter for many years, this is the first time he has worked with Frisell, they are intuitively locked in as if they had been playing together for years. Bassist Burniss Travis brings a loose, funky "groove" to the proceedings, providing a fluid anchor alongside Smith to form a formidable rhythm section. Potter's playing throughout is profound; he is not just playing; he is issuing a warning that the same discontent that fueled the fire that led to Brown's failed raid to free the enslaved people at Harper's Ferry is still smoldering beneath the surface of society today.

On "Osawatomie Brown," the addition of Sara Caswell  on violin, Rane Moore  on clarinet and Zekkereya El-magharbel  on trombone transforms the band from a traditional jazz quartet into something much more strongly suited to the historical weight of the song, adding a sense of tension to the music, almost as if they were a Greek chorus, answering Potter's playing, commenting on it. They bring a mournful, melancholic sound to the song, haunting and passing judgment on the unfolding events of the unsuccessful raid, as Brown now must face the consequences of leading the failed rebellion. Brown's final words before his execution serve as a grim warning that is as true today as it was then.

"I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood."

In fact, Potter's suite does not so much as play out as a tribute to Brown, but serves as a haunting reminder that these ghosts are still very alive and relevant today. Potter's weary tone throughout the album points to his disbelief that 167 years after Brown's failed raid on Harpers Ferry, we are still caught up in an endless cycle of conflict, doomed to repeat the failures of the past until we rectify the present.

Alive With Ghosts Today is not an easy listen, not because it is not a good album; in fact, it is a triumph of artistic vision, but because it demands the listener to do more than "listen." It is a thought-provoking statement from one of the great artists of today, passing judgment on society through the lens of examining the past and demanding that we act to finally put those ghosts to rest so that we can positively impact the society of both today and tomorrow.