Willliam Carn: Choices

The short tune "Breathe" opens Choices, sounding like something holy, in a futuristic, science-fiction way. This is how Canadian trombonist William Carn introduces his album. It is a "do it from home," mostly remotely recorded set, reminiscent—to go back over half a century— of Paul McCartney's first solo album McCartney (Apple Records, 1970). McCartney's impetus for recording his "do it yourself" project was the crumbling of the Beatles. Carn's "do it yourself" Choices came about due to the isolation and enforced idleness brought on by the Covid pandemic.

The second tune, the energetic "The Inertia of Complacency," is neither inert nor complacent. In fact, it is lively and bright, featuring HiFiLo (aka Todd Pentney) on keyboards, Ernesto Cervini on drums, trumpeter William Sperandei, saxophonists Jesse Ryan and Kelly Jefferson joining trombonist and keyboardist Carn to make an electro-mini big band sound, thumbing its collective, remotely-recorded noses at people who complain a lot and sit on their couches and do nothing about an adverse situation. Perhaps this tune is meant to light some fires under their whining, idle asses.

In proper Covid isolation mode, all of the tunes were recorded from the instrumentalists' homes, with Cervini—the lone exception to the homebound way—doing his drumming from the studio.

"Heroyim Slava"—combining electronic orchestral washes with dirge-like reed and brass fanfares and machine-like rumblings, along with spoken words from Volodymyr Zelenskyy (from one of his press briefings)—is inspired by the Russian war against Ukraine, leading into "Get Up," a nod to protestors and the oppressed and marginalized—the Hong Kong Democracy Protest, Black Lives Matter and more. It is a funky, soulful sound brimming with optimism, featuring a lively trombone solo from Carn and the stinging beauty of a guitar solo supplied, certainly, by a synthesizer, since no guitarists are listed in the personnel.

Carn is not known for his use of electronics—his acoustic group Carn Davidson 9 is the highest listing on his profile—but it is his and HiFiLo's electronics which give Choices its 21st-century sheen and soul. And "The Gift" is the loveliest of love songs, to his wife and partner in the Carn Davidson 9, saxophonist Tara Davidson. It is a solemn and reverent tune which has a futuristic/traditional dynamic, with Carn's Gregorian Chant-like vocals leading into the brief closer, "Breathe Out," wrapping up Carn's successful experimental foray into ambient electronic modernism.