Hotel San Claudio. Mark de Clive-Lowe, Shigeto, and Melanie Charles.
Reviewed by Jeromiah Taylor
I hazard that the pre-eminent starting point for discussing jazz is Albert Murray’s 1970 essay “The Blues Idiom and the Mainstream.” As someone occupied with writing about music, and as someone partial to jazz, I must recall one line or another from that essay daily. In fact, an informal rubric has evolved from which I leap into the deep-end of interpretation: when listening to a record for the first time, which line(s) from “Blues Idiom” come to mind most readily? In the case of Hotel San Claudio, I report that from beginning to end that novel effort evoked Murray’s assertion that the blues musician, when playing, is:
“Extemporizing in response to the exigencies of the situation in which he finds himself, he is confronting, acknowledging, and contending with the infernal absurdities and ever-impending frustrations inherent in the nature of all existence by playing with the possibilities that are also there” (472).
Melanie Charles, one-third of San Claudio’s trio, along with Shigeto and Mark de Clive-Lowe, affirms that notion with her self-stated mission to “make jazz trill again.” or in other words, to take “jazz from the museum to the streets.” “Possibility," which Murray thought so integral to the blues idiom, is also a serviceable reduction of San Claudio's sensibility. The record spreads its arms in warm embrace of newness, alterity, and, to use an unfortunately voguish word, innovation. A decidedly post-acoustic album, San Claudio honors and expands the legacy of spiritual jazz with its electronic saturation and various nods to world music. Though certainly it is conscious of its lineage, dedicating as it does three tracks to variations on Pharoah Sanders’ “The Creator Has a Master Plan.” San Claudio's spirit of homage does not yield to nostalgia however. The record integrates a multitude of novel voices and allusions. MdcL’s electronic compositions allude to the eastern in particular, as he continues his sonic exploration of his Japanese heritage, which originated from his 2019 Heritage series. One of San Claudio’s tracks, Bushido, appears in other forms on both records. The version on San Claudio is punctuated by mystical-flutes and staccato electronic elements, offering a sort of well-intended chinoiserie akin to Duke Ellington’s Far East Suite. “Strings” features a rapped vocal performance by Charles, whose vocals are a delightful presence throughout. Her singing and rapping possess the syllabic play definitive of jazz singing; on “Strings” she rhymes “melody” and “felony” on the open “O” like “melOdy” and “felOny.” As for the instrumental components, Shigeto’s drumming characteristically criss-crosses genre borders, sometimes offering a steady rock n’ roll presence, while at other times demanding attention with a cymbal-heavy, ornamental jazz voice. As always, Charles’ flute playing is stunningly accomplished, adhering to the precedent of the great jazz horn-players; her every note played represents an infinity of notes not played, thereby narrowing the continuum of possibility for the solo. That process of elimination – of trying to find the right expression – is the process whereby a jazz solo devolves, and finally dissolves. This technical neurosis so inextricable from improvisation is the formal counterpoint to Jazz’s general ethos of exploration.
Yet neither Charles’ contributions nor San Claudio’s whole are mere exercises in virtuosity. Rather the record feels playful, hopeful, and deeply purposeful. The artists emanate a strong belief in the relevance of what they are doing, in the indispensability of music, and especially jazz, to “play with the possibilities that are also there.” As our culture congeals and codes of rightness harden in opposition to one another, a trillness of jazz might be redemptive. A commitment on the part of our artists to play to the possibilities – which despite our interminably dour state, are also there – offers an avenue of much-needed resilience. An avenue worthy of our attention, support, and protection. In “Blues Idiom,” Murray continues that under the idiom’s sway its acolyte is not “disconcerted by intrusions, lapses, shifts in rhythm, intensifications of tempo…but is inspired by them to higher and richer levels of improvisation” (472). San Claudio in isolation certainly represents a higher and richer level of improvisation – a good-faith effort on the part of younger musicians to pay homage, while ferociously dedicating their lives to the “particular time, place, and circumstance” in which they find themselves (468). In application, San Claudio adds to jazz’s queer essence – its deviation from ephemeral metrics of normativity – and blueprints new modes of aesthetic re-action, offering a polyphonic path through and out of what might otherwise seem to be all too insurmountable.
Citation:
Murray, Albert. “The Blues Idiom”, 1970. The Golden Age of the American Essay: 1945-1970, ed. Phillip Lopate, Anchor Books, April 2021.