ENNANGA | GRAMOPHONE - REVIEW

GRAMOPHONE Sounds of america

by Donald Rosenberg

September 2023

Ashley Jackson's new album may be relatively short but it is long on feeling and artistic connections. She pays tribute to harp colleagues past and present even as she embraces a range of music drawn from the deep soil of African American cultures. There are Spirituals given fresh consideration, jazz elements in new contexts, and the only piece with harp by William Grant Still.

Two harpist-composers, Alice Coltrane and Brandee Younger, receive performances that convey Jackson's affection for these artists and highlight her ability to bring expressive luminosity to whatever she touches. The title of Coltrane's Prema is Sanskrit for 'pure love for the divine, which completely melts the heart'. Originally for piano and strings, it's an ethereal, doleful beauty as arranged by Jackson for harp and The Harlem Chamber Players. Younger's Essence of Ruby began as a work for harp and jazz ensemble. Her version for solo harp maintains the original lilt while focusing on radiance and subtle shifts of rhythm.

Jackson applies supple eloquence to two selections from Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's 42 Negro Melodies, Op 59, whose Spirituals from Africa, the West Indies and America were originally cast for solo piano. The harp versions of 'I'm troubled in mind' and 'The angels changed my name' - both American Spirituals - abound in moments of quiet despair and divine ecstasy that Jackson shapes with keen attention to shading and dynamics.

The album's titular work, Still's Ennanga, is named for a small Ugandan harp. The three movements, scored for harp, piano, and string quintet, explore a range of Black musical styles, alternating between jazz-like figures, poetic utterances and folksy exuberance. Jackson and her colleagues immerse themselves in every fervent gesture.