Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Laila Salins: Elevator Into The Sky

2

Laila Salins: Elevator Into The Sky

Laila Salins: Elevator Into The Sky
On Smash, pianist/composer Patricia Barber wrote songs quite reminiscent of the late American poet Anne Sexton's (1928-1974) poetry: abstract and almost, but not quite, inaccessible. On Elevator Into The Sky, Latvian-American singer/composer Laila Salins adapts poems by Sexton for her lyric book, backing them with a competent and far-reaching band. This project is as ambitious as easily imagined. Sexton's confessional free verses are not easily tamed musically. Salins approaches Sexton's craggy images by presenting them juxtaposed against pianist James Reynolds's often anxious figures that swell and recede with the needs of the lyrics. Marty Ehrlich's smart reeds bolster Setxon's delicate-yet-durable poetic images while providing the slight Eastern European ethnic touch.

The reward in listening to Elevator Into The Sky resides in appreciating Salins' attempt to adapt difficult material to music. The result of Salins' efforts is often free form singing laid across equally liberated accompaniment. Her voice is hipster fresh with a digital contemporary gleam that gently guides her training into those uncharted creative territories artists are often unprepared for, regardless of their training. "Riding The Elevator Into The Sky" and "Jesus Walking" offer a moody, hinged tone poem both amorphous and grounded. The latter proves to be a pastoral ballad that dramatically builds itself into a grand concert piece for Salins.

This is the music that lays the way for future experimentation and creation.

Track Listing

Starry Night; Earth; Music Swims Back to Me; Frenzy; Riding The Elevator Into The Sky; Jesus Walking; Anna Who Was Mad; Welcome, Morning; The Fury Of god’s Goodbye; The Fury of Sunrises; The Fury of Guitars and Sopranos; The Fury of Sundays.

Personnel

Laila Salins: vocals; Jamie Reynolds: piano; Marty Ehrlich: soprano saxophone, clarinet; Matt Wigton: bass; Fred Kennedy: drums; Jim Matus: guitar, laouto, laoutar; Lalita Salins: flute, background vocals; Tony Vacca and Nur Habib Tiven: percussion.

Album information

Title: Elevator Into The Sky | Year Released: 2013 | Record Label: Self Produced

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Eternal Moments
Yoko Yates
From "The Hellhole"
Marshall Crenshaw
Tramonto
John Taylor

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.