The Afro-Semitic Experience.
“Unity in the Community” begins with a classic hymn-like statement from Warren Byrd’s piano, carried aloft by a chorus of voices, bubbling bass and percussion, and horns passing a joyous melody from one bell to the next. “Why don’t we come together?” Byrd sings. “Why do we got to fight? / Let’s be like sis and brother / who finally got it right.”
The Afro-Semitic Experience — Warren Byrd on piano and vocals, David Chevan on bass and vocals, Saskia Laroo on trumpet, electronics, and vocals, Will Bartlett on clarinet, tenor saxophone, and vocals, Alvin Carter, Jr. on drum set, percussion, and vocals, Jocelyn Pleasant on drum set, congas, and percussion, and Orice Jenkins on guitar and vocals (on “Unity,” backed up by a choir of Dr. Jonathan Q. Berryman, Tara Chapman, Dana Fripp, and Cantor Meredith Greenburg) — has been a fixture of the New Haven music scene for over 25 years, and on “Unity in the Community,” it’s easy to hear why.
Its explorations of the music of Black and Jewish spiritual traditions have consistently yielded results that partake of jazz, klezmer, and several other musical stops, while also remaining utterly accessible. “Unity in the Community” ends in an all-out ecstatic vocal performance from everyone involved that is a beaming smile made audible.
“Brighter Days,” meanwhile, is a smoky ballad led by Byrd’s piano and marked by conversational solos from Laroo and Bartlett. “Retelling the Tales Told by Our Ancestors” swings on a 5/8 groove that has the feel of some of Duke Ellington’s last phrase, in which he explored Middle Eastern tonalities, with invigorating results. There are stops in the blues (“Moanin‘”), in modern takes on klezmer (“Rakhmones”). There’s a sparse take on the Abbey Lincoln classic “Throw It Away,” in which the band captures the song’s weary hope and wisdom. Its medley of “We Shall Overcome-Oseh Shalom” may be the band’s purest distillation of its musical mission yet.
Our Feet Began to Pray came out of hardship for the band. Its recording was first disrupted by the pandemic. Then, in 2021, the group lost one of its members, percussionist Baba David Coleman, to cancer, before it had a chance to record with him. But on the album itself, the band sounds as strong as ever, drawing from a rich past and infused with new energy, carrying its message of cross-cultural connection into the future.
Do Not Worry, from Old Milk Money, a.k.a. Daniel Onorato, meanwhile, is a strong opening statement from a new voice in New Haven. The opening track, “Kali,” struts and slinks along like the soundtrack to the best gritty spy movie you’ve never seen, full of atmosphere, taut rhythm, murky guitars, and a voice crying out in the wilderness. Yet “Kali” is, in fact, about what the name implies: the Hindu goddess often associated with death and destruction, but also representative of time and change. “Known as the Goddess of destruction / but know to me as the killer of deceit / She crushes suffering beneath Her feet,” Onorato sings. Suddenly the song shifts into a major mode, and a chorus of voices sings “Kali!” in exultation.
The combination of deep grooves, interesting musical turns, and unusual lyrical subject matter marks all of Do Not Worry. “Growth” staggers along on a rhythm and feel like the Beatles on a very stoned night, but makes room for a crisp guitar solo all the same. “Chestnut Blossoms” floats on a hazy cloud of guitars that connotes far-off energy and serenity, as the lyrics get pleasantly psychedelic. (“Plant your purpose in the snow / lose your focus let it grow / plus and minus never know / trust in fragrance in every changing flow,” Onorato sings.) “The Space Between” offers a taste of Onorato’s sound given a slightly more R&B electronic sheen, while the album’s closer, “Brick by Brick,” moves like an old ballad, if they’d also had warbly, spaced-out guitar in the 1930s.
Overall, the fun and confidence displayed on Do Not Worry bode well for expectations of catching Old Milk Money live; encouragingly, the project played a set at Never Ending Books last weekend, so it’s likely we’ll get a second chance.
Speaking of Never Ending Books, the album Hi-Fi Lo-IQ, by Bookers — Michael Larocca on drumset and percussion, Luke Rovinsky on electric guitar, and Caleb Duval on double bass — marks the debut release of F.I.M. Records, spawned from the F.I.M. series of shows at the State Street arts spot that has become a haven and stomping ground for New Haven’s newest generation of free-improv and experimental musicians.
The liner notes for Hi-Fi Lo-IQ give a sense of what’s in store. The album “may be proof of concept, but Bookers itself is not an exercise,” the notes read. “Bookers is not self-expression, unless itching your leg or screaming in a mirror is self-expression. Bookers may be humorous, but only in the way watching a person drink milk when they expect orange juice is humorous or watching a man gravely injure himself is humorous. The bookers practice is a sound methodology in every sense, including the water one. Bookers is simple, intuitive music from Connecticut for all to enjoy.”
That mix of serious and playful appears in virtually every second of the record, which finds Larocca, Rovinsky, and Duval each setting off musical ideas like tiny explosions, perhaps of live ammunition, perhaps of rubber balls or confetti, that then bounce and flutter around the room at high velocity.
There is a keen sense of music from various sources being taken apart and scrambled, and of new music being built before our very ears, sometimes with the air of a furrowed brow, sometimes with the flavor of cartoon characters creating Rube Goldberg music that they already know will fail to catch their mouse, and they don’t care. They’re serious musicians who like to have fun, who don’t take themselves too seriously. As the musicians associated with F.I.M. are the inheritors and latest iteration of a free-improv tradition in New Haven now three generations deep, it’s heartwarming to hear the music being carried forward by such capable hands.
