On Origami Harvest

The risk of writing a review is that we do not have language (at least not in English) that can reveal what music does. Much of what passes as cultural criticism is a meaningless ambling on about something music was never meant to be. So this is not a review,  this is not criticism, only a brief reflection, an unburdening of the weight that the hearing forced upon us; a passing on.Ambrose Akinmusire's Origami Harvest featured a string quartet, a poet/rapper, and a trio of drum, trumpet, and piano/keys/bass station. The compositions that Akinmusire wrote juxtaposed each of the components, while searching for a thread that unites every move. The poet was also speaking to juxtaposition, in life, in politics, in art. As each took their turn, in and out, I think what Akinmusire wrote for the string quartet stood out the most, compositionally. I’m always suspicious of performances where I see music stands. It feels too perfunctory, it speaks to another tradition. We are improvisatory. But in Akinmusire’s case, the sheet music was the improvisation. I remember him making such a statement about his aspiration to write in this way in 2014: "I want to be able to write a song and not have it need improvisation." And I think it has come to fruition in this project as well as in his latest album,  A Rift in Decorum. I would love to see how it looked on the sheet. That’s how brilliant it was. The sheet music must be visually stunning.And it came through in the strings. Their work was a microcosm of the whole idea. Some people use string quartets for fluff, Akinmusire did the exact opposite. And they opened space for the trio and poet to rethink and augment and of course, to improvise. The crowd was shook. Almost in a kind of mesmerized denial, waiting for a thing to come that never came, until you realized the thing you expected was underneath it the whole time. And if you didn’t catch it with the strings, the other components brought you there. Composition as juxtaposition. Sound as radical expectation, unfulfilled but realized in other ways.

Origami Harvest, 8/5/2018, Newport RI

Ambrose Akinmusire (trumpet)

Sam Harris (keys)

Marcus Gilmore (drums)

Kool AD (words)

Mivos String Quartet