8.9
"Gens de couleur libres" translate to "Free People of Color", an appropriate title to the exquisite young, up-and-coming jazz musician Matana Roberts's beginning chapter to her 12 part epic Coin Coin album series. Ambition is jam packed in the first chapter of Coin Coin with avant-garde saxophone licks, blood hurtling screams, dramatic dynamical qualities, and purely cryptic story telling from Roberts herself and it's all done live in front of a very small crowd.
Constellation Records knows how to pick up the right artists in their search for independent, out of the norm music. Constellation is growing into one of the most prominent label for experimental musicians in hopes for what they always wanted; a true label that respects and publicizes their music perfectly with extraordinary vinyl packaging, free streams on their website and so many more mementos to go along with anyone who is a fan of a Constellation artist such as Matana Roberts or more known Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
Like Colin Stetson's incredibly deep New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges, Matana Roberts's first chapter to her Coin Coin which delves into the deep history and roots of over 350 years of jazz and black history, a truly epic venture into the deep, impeccable vein of jazz music and culturally rich society of African-Americans. I can't relate to really any of it, but it moves me nonetheless. The clear, piercing cries of sax on "Kersaia" is so deeply affecting and beautifully performed that it sounds like an earning cry of sophisticated beauty.
Coin Coin Chapter One has a knack for staying avant-garde, and yet sounding like it comes together, which I find to be the best kind of avant-garde; the avant-garde that is Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, or maybe Captain Beefheart. It's unfamiliar to the ear, but that ear can be adjusted to beautiful and humanized pitches that need to be listened to. Opening track "Rise" may be offsetting to Roberts's abrasive sax squawks and the mixed bag of instruments being mixed around within Roberts's tones, but it seems to start to come together.
There a lot of variations coinciding with Roberts's immense talent. Her ability to create these near-possessed shrieks on the intro of "Pov Piti" is so dark and daunting that one would turn off the music and move on to something more light. But don't, keep listening it will pay off into a dramatic and impressive work of art. The contrast of dynamics and ambient drones on the mid-point of "Song For Eulalie" really kicks in when an explosions of multiple instruments smacks you right in the face with tenacity and grit and opens your eyes to so many different sounds never captured through your ears.
There is so much to examine in Roberts's work that I cannot explain through a simple review such as this. Her story telling, instrumentation, compositions, and all together canvas of talents is unmatched by any active jazz musician in our time. This might be history written through the eyes of a young African-American soul that truly stays true to her heart of musicianship in the modern jazz world.
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