Benjamin Koppel: White Buses: Passage To Freedom

If saxophonist/composer/bandleader Benjamin Koppel has proven anything over the last few years, it is that he has no trouble finding sources of inspiration for his work.

Whether it is just for the sake of blowing with a redoubtable rhythm section in the form of bassist Scott Colley and drummer Brian Blade on Perspective (Cowbell Music, 2023) or illustrating his own range of style with The Ultimate Soul & Jazz Revue (Cowbell Music, 2020) and The Art of The Quartet (Cowbell Music, 2020), Koppel invariably has no difficulty finding where and how to find the ways and means to make memorable music.

No doubt White Buses: Passage To Freedom was another example of his discerning instincts. But it may be fair to conjecture that, at the time the album was scheduled for release, this redoubtable musician had no idea how relevant his work would be in regards to the warfare in the Middle East in the autumn of 2023.

The prolific Danish artist's corps of accompanists is as imposing as his concept. Vocalist Thana Alexa, drummer Antonio Sanchez and Colley (again!) are only three participants elucidating a thirty-plus piece narrative devoted to the rescue of prisoners from Nazi war camps at the end of World War II. Yet from the restless piano of Uri Caine on "Two Birds In A Nest" to the cello from Henrik Dam Thomsen and additional keyboards by Soren Moller, all involved are as sensitive to the arrangements as to their interactions with the aforementioned vocalist and rhythm section.

And that is not to overlook the impassioned hornplaying of Benjamin Koppel himself. "The Devil Under The Skin" is hardly the only cut on which the sounds he coaxes from his instrument marry the forlorn and the resolute; it is a mix of emotions as nuanced as his arrangements, as well as the sonics he co-produced with Jeff Levenson in sessions at Sear Sound in New York City.

Quick spoken interludes, designated "testimonials," never really descend to the intrusive over the course of the album (though there is the nagging temptation to program the compact disc to play only the instrumentals in direct succession). Instead, such snippets provide respite from the cumulative intensity of cuts such as "I Was Terrified" and "Talking About Food."

With recapitulation and punctuation for the recordings in the form of a twelve-page booklet boasting the same glossy finish as the sleeve, Benjamin Koppel and company take listeners there and back on White Buses: Passage To Freedom. The locations and circumstances upon which this piece is based are particular to its time, but the range of emotions from exultation ("My Father") to despair ("Rumours"), mirrored in the instrumentation and compositions, imbue a perpetual pertinence to these pieces, individually and as a whole.

Comments