Jen Shyu & Jade Tongue - Zero Grasses: Ritual For the Losses

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-ritual-losses.jpg

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+

Grade B+

Favorite Tracks:
03 - Living’s a Gift Pt. 3: My Unsolved Regrets  ► 05 - Lament For Breonna Taylor ► 06 - The Human Color

Jen Shyu - Song of Silver Geese

Label/Year: Pi Recordings, 2017

Lineup: Jen Shyu: voice, Taiwanese moon lute, Korean gayageum, piano; Chris Dingman: vibraphone; Mat Maneri: viola; Thomas Morgan: bass; Satoshi Takeishi: percussion; Anna Webber: flutes; Dan Weiss: drums + The Mivos Quartet 

jen-shyu-song-silver-geese.jpg

Acknowledged as original and creative, the experimental vocalist/composer/dancer, Jen Shyu, meritoriously earned the trust of groundbreaking jazz luminaries such as Steve Coleman and Anthony Braxton.

Born in Illinois to Taiwanese and East Timorese immigrant parents, the New-York based singer brings her musical heritage and other multi-cultural influences into nine original compositions, which she calls doors (to other worlds). Although heavily steeped in the world music genre, her work also includes gritty jazz layers piled up by her Jade Tongue band, as well as the unabashed, trenchant sounds occasionally dispensed by the Mivos Quartet.

Sung in seven languages, Song of Silver Geese is a never-heard fusion between East and West cultures, originally conceived as a performance piece in a straight collaboration with the Japanese dance artist Satoshi Haga. The music is an unusual compound of raw traditional folk (Korea, Indonesia, Timor, Taiwan, and Java), cinematic chamber drama, and encouraging contemporary jazz moods.

Prologue-Song of Lavan Pitinu" blossoms with an immaculate combination of voice and lute, leading to “World of Java”, a piece that highlights Shyu’s precise low timbres and where Anna Webber’s intervallic flute notes sound as audacious and cool as Eric Dolphy’s. The flutist culminates the piece with a contemplative solo improvisation, which guides us to the next mysterious door, “Dark Road, Silent Moon”, a decidedly cinematic and experimental journey reinforced by the purely dramatic chops of the strings.

World of Hengchun” is a Taiwan-influenced piece whose dramatic orchestration feels propitious for serious puppet shows or operas, while “World of Ati Batik” is an interesting, quasi-robotic litany, beautifully put up by voice, piano, and flute. The vocalist also shows a remarkable ability for delineating stunning harmonies and incorruptible ostinatos on the piano.

The doors close with “Contemplation”, a solo poetic English-language narrative (words are by Taiwanese poet Edward Cheng), where Shyu accompanies herself with the Korean gayageum. Yet, before that, we are taken to an odd Korean dance with “World of Baridegi”, a showcase for supple percussive elements that collude with the competent instrumentation and distant foreign words uttered with a vehemence of a blazing prophet. Shyu’s flexible voice and improvisational skills are all energy, clarity, rhythm, and emotion. Expect something outside the conventional.

        Grade B

        Grade B

Favorite Tracks:
07 - World of Ati Batik ► 08 - World of Baridegi ► 09 - Contemplation