Label: Songlines Recordings, 2023

Personnel - Peggy Lee: cello; John Bentley: saxophone; Brad Turner: trumpet, flugelhorn, cornet; Jeremy Berkman: trombone; Ron Samworth: electric and acoustic guitars; Tony Wilson: electric guitar; André Lachance: electric bass; Dylan Van Der Schyff: drums.

Canadian cellist, improviser, and composer Peggy Lee boasts excellent credentials, having collaborated with spontaneous creatives such as Butch Morris, Wadada Leo Smith, Gordon Grdina, and Barry Guy. As a leader, she gained notoriety with her own octet, currently featuring two electric guitarists and a three-horn frontline. Following an 11-year hiatus, their sixth release, A Giving Way, is likely to attract new converts with eclectic music influenced by jazz, avant-garde, classical, Eastern music, and pop/rock.

In a brief span, “It’s Simple” exhibits a poignant melody and folk ascendancy, but the group digs deeper on the polyrhythmic “Internal Structures”, the first standout moment of the album. The electric bass lines of André Lachance is the glue that holds everything together, while Lee’s cello provides textural consistency. The horn players - saxophonist John Bentley, trumpeter Brad Turner, and trombonist Jeremy Berkman - exude a contagious sense of bliss, while guitarists Ron Samworth and Tony Wilson opt for distortion-infested washes. The undercurrents might be disorienting but the uninhibited group, propelled by Lee’s husband, drummer Dylan Van Der Schyff, swings boldly, allowing for a captivating trumpet statement.

While Turner takes a more active role in the first half of the album, Bentley shines in the second. The trumpeter is a standout assets on “Boat Ride Into Go Home Bay”, a rich piece bookended by pensive thoughts, and “Justice/Honour”, a response to George Floyd’s murder where the ensemble conjures something modal and epic, with Eastern spice and raw percussive tract. Among devotional horn expression, there’s classical suggestions and subtle modulation.

“Promise” serves up polished post-bop anthemics laced with a marked rock rhythm, full-bodied unisons, and a bluesy guitar solo. If this is bracingly immediate on the ear, the delicate “A Giving Way” brings the cello to center stage, later joined by tenor sax for a final emotional crescendo. The ensemble updates The Band’s haunting ballad “Whispering Pines” with enthusiasm and respect, leading “Walk Over Walk” to an ecstatic collective moment after starting cautiously.

Peggy Lee proves to be a generous composer in this transformative sonic journey, seamlessly blending profundity and abandonment.