Andrew MacKelvie: Many Worlds

In 2012, Andrew MacKelvie was struck by a drunk driver while cycling through Halifax. He broke his back, shattered his knee, and landed on his saxophone case, which likely kept his head off the pavement. What followed were months of immobility and, eventually, a compositional fixation on that sliver of time when everything might have turned out differently.

Many Worlds takes its title from the quantum theory of branching possibilities and its method from chance. The music is warm, physical, and slightly unruly, as if discovering itself in real time—which is precisely the point.

The ensemble merits close attention. Two trombones and two saxophones create a dense middle register, while Ellen Gibling's harp is integral rather than ornamental, shaping the music in ways unlike many instruments. Drummer Doug Cameron proves equally vital, keeping time without fully yielding to it, often leaning just ahead of or behind the beat.

The band expands on the jazz-rock groove established by the opener, "Impact/Awake." Here, the ensemble pushes into a semi-free horn exchange, developing the theme in real time while bridging loosely aligned sub-motifs shaded with textural effects. "Disentomb the Brain Function" rides a buoyant pulse as the horns intentionally orbit without locking in. The album's midpoint introduces two guest vocalists. Meghan Gilhespy and Zoe Leger overlap speech and song on "Testament," their words brushing against themes of chaos and order without settling.

"Realities Blossom" unfolds over a steady mid-tempo pulse, the horns weaving compact motifs into a cohesive whole." What Lies Just Beyond?" closes the album as a contrafact of Jerry Granelli's "Berlin Sky," a nod to MacKelvie's late mentor at Halifax' Creative Music Workshop. MacKelvie begins with plainspoken reflections on the moment of impact. The harp enters and voices accumulate. Hence, it is an ending that reframes what came before—less resolution than release, the narrative finally larger than its teller.

Strip away the backstory and conceptual frame and this remains a compelling band record: eight musicians in a room in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, listening intently to one another. It is the oldest principle in jazz and still the hardest to achieve. Though the album runs just under 40 minutes, every second feels indispensable, with no wasted motion across its arc.