ENNANGA | WQXR FEATURES - REVIEW

Have You Heard? | "Ennanga" by Ashley Jackson

by Quentin Neroes

October 2023

After several months of wanting to make it back to Central Park, I recently had the chance to do so a few weeks ago. Oftentimes, I’m not quite sure what I feel like listening to; so as I was on my way to the Upper East Side, I scrolled through my “favorites” playlist and listened to the bits of music that I enjoyed most before moving on to the next track. (Heathenish, I know.) When I next blinked in the sun I decided to listen to a new release; deadlines were swiftly approaching.

I picked Ennanga while making my way to the Park after hearing the solo opening of “Prema.” Its pace was perfect for the promenade I had planned, but I hadn’t foreseen the sense of serendipity that hit me once I was among the trees and I heard the Harlem Chamber Players join Ashley Jackson in what sounded like a collective Aeolian harp. I knew I was in for something good. The notes on the harp were like wind-shaken leaves on a tree with the ensemble’s mellow chords’ accompaniment. Aside from “Prema” I also really enjoyed the dynamic and various rhythms of Brandee Younger’s “Essence of Ruby” as much as I did the melody of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s version of the spiritual “I’m Troubled in Mind.”

The eponymous piece, William Grant Still’s “Ennanga,” struck me as a kind of interplay between the pastoral and the industrial. I say “interplay” and not battle, because to my mind there isn’t conflict in the ideas presented so much as there is conversation. Good roads follow the natural curvature of mountains they cross and cause minimal disruption. From the seat of a train—one of the most prominent symbols of industrialism—you can still look out the window and take in the fields, or waters, or hills. The first chunk of the first movement is all bustle, but the calm comes soon and is entirely complementary to the whole. The second movement is all ease and smoothness; perhaps it’s a promenade like my own, perhaps it’s a gentle car-ride to a placid, moonlit lake. The third movement starts with a serene dawn, but soon everyone snaps awake, or an Iron Horse passes by—there are occasions where you might hear the engine in the piano and energetic quartet. Many colors of the harp are present in this album.