Rin Seo: City Suite

There is no doubting which metropolis Korean-born composer Rin Seo had in mind when writing City Suite, the panoramic opening salvo and centerpiece on the debut recording by her fourteen-member Rin Seo Collective, as the suite's first movement is titled "The Big Apple." Seo moved to New York City, her present home, after coming to America to study jazz performance and composition at Boston's Berklee College of Music.

The suite's three movements are thematic, and Seo's portrayal of the sights, sounds and temper of the city is remarkable, as she uses every component of the Collective to create a picturesque musical landscape that feels as true as it is persuasive. Movement I, she writes, "portrays a city that is vibrant, dynamic, fast-paced and full of ambition." She uses muscular rhythms and seductive harmonies to mirror those hallmarks, leaving room for vibrant solos by pianist Adam Birnbaum, alto saxophonist Steve Wilson and drummer Jared Schonig while deftly merging the ensemble's four-member string section.

Movement II, "Cityscape," is designed to "capture the dazzling beauty of the city's night skyline...," which Seo does by coupling an alluring trumpet-led melody with a strong rhythmic pulse and undergirding the amalgam with fiery solos by tenor Dan Pratt and guitarist Sebastian Noelle. The third movement, "Alone, But Not Alone," which, Seo writes, "encapsulates the challenging and often lonely path of chasing a dream in such a massive city," is a handsome ballad enriched by the ensemble's proficiency and Wilson's eloquent soprano sax solo.

The album, however, has far more to offer than the City Suite alone, namely four more of Seo's picturesque original compositions and her dynamic arrangement of Wayne Shorter's "Blues a la Carte." The first of these themes, the plaintive "Lullaby," written to honor Seo's late cousin and friend, Ben, and "others [she has] lost along the way," encompasses perceptive statements by Noelle and French horn player Adam Unsworth, leading to the similarly casual "Desert Flower," a charming showcase for guest Ingrid Jensen's lyrical trumpet. The mood and tempo change dramatically on "Music for Dance No. 2," an Afro-Cuban cloudburst whose hot-blooded soloists are tenor Pratt, baritone Andrew Gutauskas and trumpeter John Lake with a murmured out-chorus by the ensemble's "vocal chorale."

Shorter's "Blues a la Carte" is another barn-burner, this one featuring Wilson, Lake, Birnbaum, Grinder and the Collective's hard- working rhythm section. Jensen returns to solo brightly on the animated finale, "Riding a Bike," an experience whose "ups and downs," Seo affirms, are much like life itself, a series of highs and lows whose wonders are represented by the tune's flexible and capricious melody, harmony and rhythm. "Bike" places an indelible exclamation mark on an excellent debut whose highs far outnumber any lows and whose leader, Rin Seo, adds a bold and creative new voice to the ranks of contemporary big-band composers and arrangers.

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