Ingrid Laubrock: Purposing The Air

Purposing The Air is a recording of extreme quality, though it is undoubtedly aimed at an informed audience, one more inclined toward contemporary classical music. While some pieces carry faint echoes of jazz, listening to this album is akin to stepping into a museum to attend a recital. Each artist is striving for excellence on every level: musicality, interpretation and even theatricality. It is, without a doubt, a powerful creation.

To fully grasp the artistic approach behind this album, one must immerse oneself in the words of Ingrid Laubrock: "I grew up in a literary household, surrounded by parents who placed great importance on the power of words. My father was a Goethe specialist, and my mother would often read aloud to us, emphasizing the beauty of words' sound. I have always felt a deep affinity for poetry, appreciating its emotional capacity to move us and make us reflect in ways that are less literal." This same devotion to the beauty of words permeates the composer's music, and it is precisely what captivates. Nothing here is self-evident; one must open one's mind, challenge one's listening, and allow oneself to be immersed. In the end, we find ourselves before a succession of 21st-century masterworks.

Laubrock continues, "Miles Davis insisted on the importance of knowing the lyrics to jazz standards, and I have always believed that understanding the meaning of words adds an extra dimension to improvisation. During my formative years as a musician in London, my first band was Nóis 4, a collaboration with Brazilian singer Monica Vasconcelos. We performed our own compositions as well as arrangements of works by Brazilian masters. Mônica is both a journalist and a remarkable lyricist in her own right; she would only sing songs whose lyrics she deeply loved. We often discussed the meaning of the texts, and I even learned Portuguese to immerse myself further in this music."

The ability of artists to intertwine their craft with other forms of expression is what allows compositions of such richness to emerge in works that defy comprehension. It is likely that something is inevitably lost in the transition from live performance to recording, but the cultural contribution remains undeniable. The artistic vision of each musician involved in these pieces is strikingly effective.

Laubrock adds, "Still confined in 2021, I composed the first dozen pieces at home. Then, as travel became possible again, my writing continued elsewhere: four pieces at Ragdale House near Chicago, two in Ucross, Wyoming, where temperatures plummeted to -24°F, with only bison, eagles and deer for company. Others were written in Norway, Germany, Austria, or even while cat-sitting for Sylvie Courvoisier. The final piece was completed on the way to the recording session for Fay and Mariel on June 7, 2024. I assigned the poems to duets guided more by the voice I heard in my mind than by the instruments themselves. These choices were often intuitive, sometimes inspired by a word, a phrase, or a sonic impression. The sequence of poems was rearranged for musical coherence, and the track numbers on the album correspond to this revised order."

Purposing the Air is an album that should not be put in your record collection, but rather in your books, because it is pure intellectual nourishment, a deeply fascinating experience.