Label: Pi Recordings, 2021
Personnel - Jen Shyu - voice, piano, percussion, Japanese biwa, Taiwanese moon lute; Ambrose Akinmusire: trumpet; Mat Maneri: viola; Thomas Morgan: bass; Dan Weiss: drums.
Jen Shyu, an incredibly talented singer/composer and multi-instrumentalist, delivers a groundbreaking multi-lingual hour-long opus that screams with personal loss - related to her father’s recent passing - and cuts into the surface of societal problems such as racism and sexism. Her flagship ensemble, Jade Tongue, was narrowed into a stellar quintet for Zero Grasses: Ritual for the Losses, a John Zorn-commissioned work featuring Ambrose Akinmusire on trumpet, Mat Maneri on viola, and the rhythm team of bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Dan Weiss.
The album kicks off with the four-part suite “Living’s a Gift”, an emotional reaction to the covid-19 pandemic, where impeccably layered vocals overlap to create polyphonic melodies, unisons and counterpoint. Just like the opener, the following piece “Lament For Breonna Taylor” was composed in 2020, but this time with the marginalized Black lives in mind as it references the shooting of the African-American mentioned in the title, in an erroneous drug raid led by Louisville police in Kentucky. Following preliminary chimes and gongs, the desolate narrative proceeds with wailing viola, mournful trumpet cries, dramatic piano tremolos and somber bowed bass. With no disruption, this piece slips directly into the memorable “The Human Color”, whose ambiance is in compliance with a stylish jazz velvetiness that serves Akinmusire’s soloing virtuosity. The latter piece, brought back from Jade Tongue’s 2009 eponymous album, condemns the 19th-century colonialism in Cuba.
Both “A Cure For the Heart’s Longing” and “Display Under the Moon” were taken from Shyu’s solo theatrical work Nine Doors and thrive with curious instrumentations. In the former, Shyu accompanies herself on the two-string Taiwanese moon lute, while the latter dives in the Japanese traditional music, featuring the 4-string Japanese biwa on top of deft bass underpinnings. These pieces, together with the ritualistic “When I Have Power”, a vehicle for Shyu's virtuosic singing while going back to the race-motivated confusion of her teenage years, defy conventional forms and aesthetics. Another paradigm of her vocal prowess is the poignant “Body of Tears”, verbalized with remarkable range and emotional tension.
Putting her ethnic fusion capabilities at the service of each narrative segment, Shyu blends the ancient and the contemporary to forge an unparalleled, cohesive sound.
Grade B+
Favorite Tracks:
03 - Living’s a Gift Pt. 3: My Unsolved Regrets ► 05 - Lament For Breonna Taylor ► 06 - The Human Color