Claire Cope: Every Journey

Consider British pianist, composer/ bandleader Claire Cope. She debuted as a fully formed artist via her excellent septet set Small World (Self Produced, 2020), a deftly crafted classical/jazz hybrid. On her second recording, the album at hand, Every Journey, she employs an eleven-piece ensemble, building on the atmosphere of her debut, painting translucent layerings and weaving a loose net of textures into gorgeous, expansive soundscapes. With composer-bandleader Maria Schneider as a major touchstone, Cope creates luminous arrangements. She cites Schneider's Sky Blue (ArtistShare, 2007), but her (Schneider's) breakout album, Concert In the Garden (ArtistShare, 2004) could factor in. taking into account Luciana Souza's wordless vocals enhancing the atmosphere of the composer's soaring, lighter that air harmonies.

Cope employs Brigitte Beraha on vocals, adding a warmth, a more-than-human element, an angelic enhancement that makes words unnecessary. The translucent arrangements are cool and airy, infused with soft pastels, a lush but light sound, bringing trumpeter Kenny Wheeler's work with horn charts to mind.

When a composer embraces a theme, it can give the artistry gravitas. Cope explores the first steps of every journey, specifically the journeys of undersung female pioneers who worked against the societal stacked decks to do great things. The compostion "Flight" tips a hat to Bessie Coleman, the first woman of African and Indigenous American descent to earn her pilot's license in the U.S. "Isabel" celebrates Isabel Godin des Odonais, the first woman to travel the length of the Amazon River. "The Nabongo Feeling" embraces the explorations of the intrepid modern-day journeyer Jessica Nabongo, the first documented black woman to visit the world's 195 countries. All of this celebratory music at a time, 2025, when a loutish U.S. President strives mightily to erase from the public records the accomplishments of anyone female and anyone with brown skin. Cope and those artists like her can, in a sane world, serve as an antidote to the malignant racist and misogynistic tendencies that have broken through the societal foundations like poisonous mushrooms erupting from the earth; Cope's music is a field of wild flowers emerging in the spring.. Like the work of Pat Metheny's From This Place (Nonesuch Records, 2019), or pianist Brad Mehldau's ambitious Highway Rider (Nonesuch Records, 2010), Cope's Every Journey is an uplifting experience—grand and aspirational, complex but accessible. Music that is as beautiful as music gets.

The next step in Claire Cope's journey? Who knows. Strings? Electronics? For now, Claire Cope has gravitas. Every Journey enchants and inspires the spirit.

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