ENNANGA | TEXTURA - REVIEW
Ashley Jackson: Ennanga - REVIEW
by textura
June 2023
On her solo debut album Ennanga, harpist Ashley Jackson honours Brandee Younger, Alice Coltrane, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and William Grant Still with stellar performances of their works. Enhancing the appeal of the release, Jackson plays alone on three pieces and is joined by The Harlem Chamber Players (of which she's also a member) on Coltrane's Prema and Still's three-part title piece. One of Jackson's aims for the project is to bring attention to the work of Black composers who have, in her words, “consistently redefined our musical landscape,” and Ennanga achieves that goal resoundingly with renditions that are heartfelt and eloquent.
That Jackson brings a scholarly sensibility to Ennanga is understandable: she earned her B. A. at Yale University, her Master of Music degree at the Yale School of Music, and her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Juilliard; further to that, she has written and given speaking engagements about Margaret Bonds, Civil Rights, and the myriad issues Black classical artists contend with today. She currently holds the title of Assistant Professor and the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Music Department at Hunter College in New York City. As such, the album is naturally informed by Jackson's awareness of the historical challenges composers such as Coleridge-Taylor and Still confronted in their lives.
Ennanga most draws on her gifts as a performer, however, gifts that have seen her perform at Lincoln Center and with the New York Philharmonic and Louisiana Philharmonic. Fittingly, the album begins with Alice Coltrane and Prema, a Sanskrit word meaning “pure love for the divine, which completely melts the heart.” Originally presented in 1978 in a piano-and-strings arrangement, Jackson recasts it here for harp and strings, with members of The Harlem Chamber Players accompanying her. The harpist's artistry is on full display during the meditative introduction, but the treatment is no less gripping when the strings emerge. A work of stirring beauty, Prema serves as a powerful reminder of how visionary Coltrane was, not just as a player but as a composer too. As the harpist embroiders the music with sparkling runs, the affection Jackson feels for her predecessor resonates throughout the intensely moving performance.
Two pieces are spirituals Coleridge-Taylor arranged for solo piano and are here as affectingly presented in solo harp versions. As its title indicates, I'm Troubled in Mind deals with feelings of grief and loss, the composer specifically dealing with the suffering endured by slaves. As permeated with sadness as the writing is, hope emerges too in a way that testifies to the resilience of the human spirit. Also from his collection Twenty-Four Negro Melodies, The Angels Changed My Name closes the album with Jackson celebrating the Black artists whose enduring legacy she's inherited. A folk expression filled with yearning and optimism, the piece resolves the album on a perfectly considered note, and in both of these sensitive performances, Jackson shows that her connection to the material is total.
After featuring Essence of Ruby on her 2016 album Wax and Wane, Younger created a solo harp version two years later, the tune itself inspired by harp legend Dorothy Ashby and her ‘60s composition Essence of a Sapphire. Just as Jackson's paying tribute to those who've come before her, Younger did the same with her gorgeous Ashby homage. Similar to Prema, Jackson's incandescent performance of Essence of Ruby exudes appreciation for the contributions made by others and the change they helped bring about.
Still's eighteen-minute Ennanga is naturally the centrepiece. Written in the ‘50s at the request of harpist Lois Adele Craft, the work derives its title from a type of harp played in Uganda and, in being scored for harp, string quintet, and piano, features the album's most expansive arrangement. Echoes of gospel songs surface within the three-part work, be it “Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen” (the first) or “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” (the second), and contrasts between the parts are pronounced. The opening movement is marked by an insistent urgency and rhythmic thrust, though arresting episodes of delicate lyricism arise too. Whereas that tone carries over into the haunting central movement, which in its sensual instrumental blend is even gentler, the third movement sees the music picking up steam and concluding the work on a joyful and at times jazz-tinged note.
Ennanga is an assured statement by Jackson and all the more impressive for being her debut album. She has honoured her forebears with the sincerity of her expressions and the genuine character of the performances, the result an album of which she can be justifiably proud. In addition to showcasing her arresting harp playing, the material on Ennanga dazzles whilst also acknowledging the fertile musical soil from which it grew.