Michael Sarian: Live at Cliff Bell's

On March 30, 2023, Michael Sarian rolled into Detroit landmark Cliff Bell's with horn in hand. In the midst of a spring tour, that particular venue and evening provided an opportunity for the trumpeter and his bandmates—pianist Santiago Leibson, bassist Marty Kenney and drummer Nathan Ellman-Bell—to do what they do best. Working through new material and strong selections from previous studio albums, this outfit delivered the goods with coiled intensity, some sturm-und-drang sophistication, open ears, sensitivity and melodic mindset. And engineer Jon Georgievski was there to capture it for posterity.

Opening on "Primo," Sarian and company are primed for action. Intensity and fluidity both prove to be calling cards as these four men ride on and off the swinging rails. "Aurora," sourced from the quartet's 2020 debut, settles things down through solemnity, meditating on two mass shootings—serious episodes of senseless violence—in the titular city in Illinois. Sarian's aching horn and Kenney's penetrating bass cut right to the heart of the hurt in this deeply-felt exploration. A Leibson interlude bridges the gap between that moving number and "The Pilgrim," a tense and dynamic tribute to Italian trumpet heavy Enrico Rava. Borrowing and building on a spurting sixteenth-note phrase from the honoree's "Bella," it references the album housing that classic—The Pilgrim and The Stars (ECM, 1975).

As the album reaches its midpoint, Sarian seduces with 18th-century Armenian ashugh Sayat Nova's "Yi Ku Ghimetn Chim Kidi." Working that balladeer's mystical melodies over expanded harmony and loose-laid time, the trumpeter and his fellow musicians create a spellbinding rift in the ages. Returning to originals, the focus remains on that landlocked area. "Glass Mountains," a new original dedicated to the people of Artsakh, hikes on uneven ground and deals with a wide emotional spectrum while referencing the injustices carried out against this population. And a brief, spring-loaded bass spotlight serves as connective tissue between that piece and "Portrait of Haile." Given in praise of Haile Selassie, the onetime Emperor of Ethiopia who saved a group of Armenian musicians who fled genocide, it uses angularity, circular thought and friction to its advantage while demonstrating the meaning of leading-edge authority in action.

Leaving Armenian history behind for the album's finale, the quartet ponders "Living at the End of the World" through a jaunty shuffle with blues undertones and post-modern detours. The title track from the band's 2022 studio set, and a number drawing thoughts from author Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World (Kodansha International, 1985), it sizzles as it swings to conclusions.

If this album doesn't demonstrate that Michael Sarian is a talent deserving of wider recognition, nothing will. There's an urgency in this music that is well beyond the norm these days, and the trumpeter has a way with forward thoughts and frayed expression that seriously separates him from the pack. Most of us missed out on this magical night at Cliff Bell's, but that doesn't mean we can't appreciate it to the fullest from afar now.

Comments